Anaphoric Relations in English and French : A Discourse Perspective 9781317421528, 9781138918276

Citation preview

,!7IB1D8-jbichg!

www.routledge.com  an informa business

ANAPHORIC RELATIONS IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH

Francis Cornish

ISBN 978-1-138-91827-6

ANAPHORIC RELATIONS IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH A Discourse Perspective Francis Cornish

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Volume 7

ANAPHORIC RELATIONS IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH

Page Intentionally Left Blank

ANAPHORIC RELATIONS IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH A Discourse Perspective

FRANCIS CORNISH

First published in 1986 This edition first published in 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1986 Francis Cornish All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: ISBN: ISBN: ISBN:

978-1-138-92111-5 978-1-315-68654-7 978-1-138-91827-6 978-1-315-68856-5

(Set) (Set) (ebk) (Volume 7) (hbk) (Volume 7) (ebk)

Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

Anaphoric Relations in English and French A Discourse Perspective

FRANCIS CORNISH

CROOM HELM

London • Sydney • Dover, New Hampshire

© 1986 Francis Cornish

Croom Helm Ltd, Provident House, Burrell Row, Beckenham, Kent BR3 lAT Croom Helm Australia Pty Ltd, Suite 4, 6th Floor, 64-76 Kippax Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010, Australia British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Cornish, Francis Anaphoric relations in English and French: a discourse perspective. 1. English language- Grammar- 19502. Anaphora (Linguistics) 3. French language - Grammar - 1950- 4. Anaphora (Linguistics) I. Title 425 PE1106 ISBN 0-7099-3437-8

Croom Helm, 51 Washington Street, Dover, New Hampshire 03820, USA Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cornish, Francis Anaphoric relations in English and French. Based on author's thesis (doctoral)-university of Sussex, 1982. Includes index. 1. Anaphora (linguistics) 2. English languageanaphora. 3. French language-anaphora. 4. Discourse analysis. I. Title. P299.A5C67 1986 415 86-4187 ISBN 0-7099-3437-8

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, Guildford and King's Lynn

EDITORIAL STATEMENT

CROOM HELM LINGUISTICS SERIES Chief Editor

Professor John Hawkins, University of Southern California

Consultant Editors

Professor Joseph Aoun , University of Southern California Professor Bernard Comrie, University of Southern California Dr Richard Hudson, University College London Professor James Hurford, University of Edinburgh Professor Douglas Pulleyblank, University of Southern California

The Croom Helm linguistics Series does not specialise in any one area of language study, nor does it limit itself to any one theoretical approach. Synchronic and diachronic descriptive studies, either syntactic, semantic, phonological or morphological, are welcomed, as are more theoretical 'model-building' studies, and studies in sociolinguistics or psycholinguistics. The criterion for a work's acceptance is the quality of its contribution to the relevant field. All texts published must advance our understanding of the nature of language in areas of substantial interest to major sectors of the linguistic research community. Traditional scholarly standards, such as clarity of presentation, factual and logical soundness of argumentation, and a thorough and reasoned orientation to other relevant work, are also required. Within these indispensable limitations we welcome the submission of creative and original contributions to the study of language. The editors and publisher wish to draw this series to the attention of scholars, who are invited to submit manuscripts or book-proposals to: Professor John Hawkins, Department of linguistics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1693, USA: or to Jonathan Price, linguistics Editor, Croom Helm Publishers, Provident House, Burrell Row, Beckenham, Kent BR3 lAT, UK.

Page Intentionally Left Blank

CONTENTS

Preface Abbreviations 1.

INTRODUCTION 1.0 1.1

2.

TYPES OF ANAPHORA IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH 2.0 2.1

2.2

2.3 2.4

3.

Nature of the subject, and previous studies of it Outline of the book Notes

1

4 6 7

Introduction 7 Morpho-syntactically defined anaphoric relations 8 2.1.1 Noun anaphora 9 2.1.2 Noun-Phrase anaphora 10 2.1.3 Verb anaphora 12 2.1.4 Verb-Phrase anaphora 13 2.1.5 Sentence anaphora 14 Semantically-defined anaphoric relations 19 2.2.1 Synonymy 19 2.2.2 Hyponymy 20 2.2.3 'Contextual-status assignment' 20 2.2.4 Pragmatic (factual) knowledge concerning referent 23 Other types of anaphoric relations 27 Conclusion 30 Notes 32

'STRICT' NOMINAL ANAPHORA 3.0 3.1

1

34

Introduction 34 English nominal anaphora: nature and functions 36 3.1.1 Reflexive clauses 38 3.1.2 Complement 'subject' control 45 3.1.3 Relative clauses 53

3.2

3.3

4.

French nominal anaphora 3.2.1 Reflexive pronouns 3.2.2 Complement 'subject' control 3.2.3 Relative clauses Conclusion Notes

PREDICATE AND PROPOSITIONAL ANAPHORA 4.0 4.1

4.2

Introduction English predicate and propositional anaphora 4.1.1 Predicate anaphora 4.1.1.1 Ellipsis 4.1.1.2 So and do so 4.1.1.3 It and do it 4.1.2 Propositional anaphora 4.1.2.1 Propositional it French predicate and propositional anaphora 4.2.1 Predicate anaphora 4.2.1.1 Complete ellipsis 4.2.1.2 Pro-verb fai~e. Ze fai~e, and fai~e ceZa/~a

4.2.1.3 Le (y,en) as a predicate anaphor 4.2.2 Propositional anaphora 4.2.2.1 Neuter iZ/Ze, y and en 4.2.2.2 Contrasts between neuter Ze and ceZa/qa in terms of their differing syntactic and referential properties 4.2.2.2.1 The relevance of the coherence constraint Notes 5.

REFERENCE AND ANAPHORA 5.0 5.1 5.2

5.3 5.4

58 58 67

73 77

80 83 83 84 86 87 94 99 101 101 105 105 105 107 111 121 122 125 127 130 133

Introduction 133 The notion 'domain of reference' 134 Discourse referents and their inscription within the discourse model 141 5.2.1 Linguistic reflexes of discourse referents 149 Deixis and anaphora 153 Pronominal anaphora, deixis, and referential perspective 159 Notes 172

6.

AGREEMENT AND ANAPHORA 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5

7.

176

Introduction 176 The nature and functions of agreement: 'Agreement' vs. Concord 177 Concord, cohesion and 'structural distance' 183 'Controllerless' agreement targets 189 'Positive' vs. 'neutral' agreement 196 Degree of agreement and the 'Agreement Hierarchy'203 6.5.1 Cohesion and coherence: constraints on the combination of different types of concord expressible with the same controller 211 Notes 214

CONCLUSION

218

References

223

Index

239

Tables: 5.1

The French non-subject, non-reflexive third person pronouns

171

6.1

Agreement relations (in the broad sense of the term) and their respective domains of operation

186

6.2

Corbett's 'Agreement Hierarchy' (Table 5.5: The Combined Target Hierarchies, 1983:88)

204

6.3

Corbett's (1983) 'Combined Target Agreement Hierarchies' - Revised

210

Page Intentionally Left Blank

PREFACE

The present book is in the nature of a critical survey of an ever-developing field, whose complexity and ramifications are only now being appreciated - as reflected in the vast and diverse literature devoted to anaphora that has emerged over the past ten or fifteen years. I am not attempting here to elaborate a precise and rigorous account of anaphora in the two languages under consideration within some formal model of grammar, since I believe this to be premature (and even potentially misleading) at the present stage of our understanding. What I have tried to do is present a 'state of the art' at the time of writing, interrelating the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of the various types of anaphora in terms of the discourse function which those features subserve. This approach, I believe, far from being unprincipled and ad hoc,reveals the essential unity underlying the wide diversity of types of anaphora in the two languages. The focus, however, is upon the broad opposition between predicate and nominal anaphora, two major types whose importance in the functioning of anaphora as a whole reflects the basic division between the complementary functions of predication and reference within discourse. The book has its origin in my doctoral thesis for the University of Sussex (1982). The most substantial change I have made is the addition of a new chapter, Chapter 3, which ·studies three sub-types of what I call 'strict nominal anaphora' in English and French. I use the crosshatch (If) as a means of indicating that the example so prefixed is incoherent as a (potential) discourse relative to the context-of-utterance indicated, rather than strictly ungrammatical as a sentence. The latter value is realised by the asterisk (*) as is now traditional in linguistic studies. (Its use, however, has in my view often been abused in the sense that it is frequently used to signal semantic-pragmatic incoherence, at the utterance-level, rather

Preface than strict ungrammaticality at the sentence-level. This point is mentioned at several junctures throughout the book where I present other authors' examples.) Furthermore, in referring to examples presented in previous chapers, I adopt the following convention: the number of the chapter, followed by the number of the example within that chapter, e.g. 3(64). I would like to thank the following for reading and commenting upon various parts of the draft of this book or upon the original thesis: my thesis supervisor, John Lyons, Grev Corbett, Simon Dik, an anonymous Croom Helm reader, and Croom Helm's Linguistics Editor, Jonathan Price. The lastnamed has been particularly helpful as regards questions of style, presentation and procedure. None of the above, of course, is responsible for any errors which may remain in the final version. I would also like to thank my typist, Val Heap, for her very rapid and efficient work, as well as the two native speakers of Norwegian whom I consulted at the time of writing my thesis, Eva Horn and Lise Opdahl. Finally I thank my wife for being (or rather, having to be) so longsuffering during the period of writing.

ABBREVIATIONS def

definite

dem

demonstrative

fern

feminine

indef

indefinite

masc

masculine

neut

neuter

plur

plur

sing

singular

I

first person

II

second person

III

third person

S.C. Dik's 'Functional Grammar' terms: Ag

Agent

d

definite term operator

Loc

Locative

R

Relativization operator

1

Single referent

Page Intentionally Left Blank

Chapter One INTRODUCTION

On peut comparer avantageusement les anaphoriques a des ampoules ~tectriques qui ne s'allument que lorsque le fit qui les atimente est mis en contact avec ta source d'~tectricit~. It y a la en quelque sorte une prise de courant s~mantique. En ce sens on peut dire que les anaphoriques sont des motsprises de courant. (L. Tesniere, 1969:90)

One may usefully compare anaphors to electric light bulbs which only light up when the wire which supplies them is connected to the electricity source. In their case, there is a kind of semantic intake of current. It is in this sense that one may say that anaphors are current-intake words.

1. 0

NATURE OF THE SUBJECT, AND PREVIOUS STUDIES OF IT

Anaphora is, on the face of it, a very simple and straightforward phenomenon, consisting of the avoidance of redundancy or repetition by the use of a semantically (and, optionally, lexically and phonologically) attenuated expression in place of the full, lexical expression initially used. By virtue of its pairing with the latter as 'antecedent', the attenuated expression (the anaphor) repeats the reference, or the sense, which it has already established, This description of the phenomenon is, indeed, consonant with the etymology of the original Greek term ava~opaf and indeed the main stream of studies of anaphora until fairly recent times has assumed the essential correctness of this view, adopting an account of it in terms of the substitution of an anaphor for a contextually-adjusted version of the 'antecedent'. Bosch's (1983) Chapter 1 provides an excellent background description of some of the main accounts of pronouns and anaphora from the classical Greek grammarians to recent Extended Standard 1

Introduction Theory (EST) as well as discourse-semantic approaches, and the reader is referred to it for further details. This, however, is a misleading view in several respects. First, it implies that anaphora is essentially a syntagmatic, quasi-grammatical relation between two syntactically realised expressions; second, that the form of the anaphor, as well as its full sense and reference, is automatically determined by its antecedent expression: hence the anaphor can have no intrinsic referential or semantic properties of its own and may not contribute to the interpretation of its antecedent; and third, that the description of this relationship essentially involves only these two expressions, independently of the semantic and pragmatic contribution of the expressions which co-occur in each textual environment. In the classical transformationalist account of anaphora (then termed 'coreference'), as well as in more recent 'interpretivist' accounts within both the Extended and the Revised Extended Standard Theory (REST) of Transformational Grammar, the structural environment in which antecedent and anaphor occurred relative to each other was considered to be paramount in determining whether substitution or deletion (that is, 'pronominalization', in the transformationalist account: cf. Lees & Klima, 1963, Chomsky, 1965), or the pairing of an independently specified antecedent and anaphor in terms of 'coreference'(cf. Jackendoff, 1972), could take place. This search for the appropriate structural constraint 2 in terms of which anaphora and/or coreference must, cannot or may hold between two textually co-occurring expressions 3 has proved largely fruitless (though a great many interesting and valuable discoveries and insights, not only about anaphora, but language in general - this is particularly true of Reinhart, 1983- have been made along the way). Although in the more recent REST (Reinhart, 1983) and Government-Binding (Chomsky, 1981) approaches, the notion of syntagmatic substitution has been abandoned in favour of a set of binding rules, each regulating the pairing of different types of anaphors, each with different syntactic and referential properties (namely, 1 anaphors 1 , 1 pronominals 1 , and 'lexical NPs' -see Chapter 3 for discussion), with a potential antecedent expression, relative to some specific syntactic domain (a domain which differs in accordance with the referential 'strength' of each type of anaphor), essentially the same assumptions about the nature of anaphora are'held. Underlying these assumptions is the belief that syntactic rules and constraints (and structural considerations in general) form the basis of language as a whole, and derivatively, of the use of language in context; and holding this assumption entails seeking an explanatory account of a linguistic phenomenon (here anaphora and coreference) in terms of such rules and constraints. 2

Introduction Yet many linguists (most notably, Bolinger, 1979 and, in much greater depth, Bosch, 1983) have brought forward substantial evidence and arguments against such an approach to anaphora in particular - a language phenomenon which, as even Wasow (1979b: 147), at the end of an important study of anaphora conducted within a TG-Interpretive Semantics framework, concedes, is ("in large part", at least) a discourse rather than sentence-syntactic relationship. By this is not meant simply that the domain of many anaphoric relations exceeds the sentence (whether simple or complex), or that they are not subject to various well-established sentencelevel (syntactic) constraints (though these two criteria are indeed what Wasow appears to have had in mind). Rather, the term 'discourse phenomenon' applied to anaphora (of all varieties, I would add, not simply the inter-sentential types) signifies both that it has specific discourse functions and that it owes its very existence to a number of discourse properties and relations, properties and relations which, indeed, permit the elaboration of conditions which either override the specific predictions of the various formal constraints framed in terms of such structural notions as 'c-command domain' in specifying a particular instance of anaphora, or are equivalent in predictive value. It is the aim of this book to pinpoint such properties and relations, and to determine the range of communicative functions which certain types of anaphora may fulfil within their discourse context. Anaphora, as the classical Greek grammarians and the nineteenth-century Indo-European scholars defined it (cf. Bosch, ibid., p. 1 ff.), is in contrast with deixis. -Deixis proper involves the introduction of a new object of focus within some universe of discourse, while anaphora presupposes a common, pre-existing focus (cf. also Ehlich, 1982, and 5.3 below, for further discussion). While anaphora serves as a mechanism for the maintenance of some common object of focus within a discourse, deixis. serves to shift the preexisting focus to some new object which is to be talked about in the succeeding discourse space, a functiop which subsequent anaphoric reference to it will subserve. The discourse entity to which the anaphor refers (thereby maintaining its high level of focus within the currently developing discourse space) need not, however, have been explicitly introduced by linguistic means within the discourse model which each participant is constructing as the discourse progresses: it may have been derived via an inference on the basis of some such explicitly realised linguistic expression, or via the participants' jointly focusing upon some perceptually available entity within the context-of-utterance, or it may already have been available through general or specific sociocultural real-world knowledge, or simply by being an issue of continuing mutual concern to the participants involved. 3

Introduction There are thus a variety of ways in which a focused discourse entity may have been introduced into the speaker's and (in the ideal situation) the addressee's model of the developing discourse. The 'antecedent' expression, in traditional and current accounts of anaphora, thus enjoys no monopoly as far as the introduction of discourse entities is concerned, and indeed may even turn out to be a relatively infrequent method of doing so in terms of actual language behaviour. Thus the notion 'antecedent' is in no sense a necessary or sufficient condition for the existence of anaphora. The anaphor, where this is a referring expression, thus refers directly to a discourse entity mediated by the description in terms of which the latter is located or inscribed in the discourse model (cf. 5.2.1 below, and, in particular, Webber, 1979). (Webber, 1979, indeed calls such descriptions 'antecedents', but this is unfortunate, because of the potential confusion with the more traditional sense of this term). In the case of sentenceinternal, grammatically-defined anaphora (what I shall be calling 'strict' anaphora- cf. Chapter 3), the 'antecedent' is in reality nothing other than a controller, a function relevant for agreement processes of various kinds (cf. Chapter 6), of which it is arguable that 'strict' anaphoric relations are an instance. 1.1

OUTLINE OF THE BOOK

In this book, then, I challenge the traditional view of anaphora, as outlined in 1.0, a view which, with the exception of the substitutional origin of pronouns, finds itself perpetuated in particular in current Government-Binding and other REST models of language. Further, I develop and extend the observations and analyses of recent discourse-oriented accounts of anaphora such as those found in Bosch (1983) and Bolinger (1979), already mentioned. There is yet a further important strand that is closely associated with the discourse-oriented 'core-linguistics' approaches already mentioned, in the shape of the computational frameworks which operate broadly within the Artificial Intelligence field (see, for a convenient summary and discussion of the most important of these approaches, Hirst, 198l),Webber (1979) being without doubt the most comprehensive as well as theoretically significant. Finally, there is an important psycholinguistic strand (e.g. Marslen-Wilson, Levy & Tyler, 1982, McKoon & Ratcliff, 1980, Hirst & Brill, 1980), which must be taken into consideration. I draw upon all three of these strands in this study. In order to gain a general perspective upon the phenomenon of anaphora, I begin in Chapter 2 by surveying the different ways in which anaphoric relations may be created, in order to arrive at a preliminary assessment of the common

4

Introduction basic properties of anaphora before starting a more detailed analysis. Examples presented here and throughout the book will include attested, actually-occurring data, both written and spoken, as well as controlled invented examples. Thus one of the main concerns will be to extend the still far too narrow data base upon which theories of anaphora have been built. Chapter 3 begins the detailed analysis of specific types of anaphora in English and French referred to earlier. I have chosen three instances of what I call 'strict' anaphora (i.e. grammatically determined, non-referential, intrasentential anaphora) within the nominal sub-type. These are: reflexive anaphora (and, marginally, reciprocals) together with other instances of 'bound' anaphora involving ordinary and possessive pronouns; non-finite complement clauses introduced by a'null subject' (complement 'subject' control); and (mainly) restrictive relative-clause anaphora. I first discuss the relevant English phenomena, and then the French, placing emphasis on the important semantic properties of the various types as well as the pragmatic parameters which constrain them. Chapter 4 is devoted to predicate and propositional anaphoric relations, sub-types which tend to receive markedly less attention than do nominal ones (particularly those involving coreference between antecedent and anaphor) in the literature on anaphora. The format again consists of an initial section devoted to the relevant English phenomena, followed by one concerning the French. Here, the discoursesemantic and pragmatic properties and functions of the various sub-types concerned are particularly in evidence, the dynamic, active role of the anaphor being highlighted in certain specific instances. . The various reference-related features of the sub-types of anaphora so far studied having been brought to the fore in the operation of anaphora in general, Chapter 5 is entirely given over to such concerns. Here I define the discourse domain within which referential anaphora·operates (that is, the notion 'domain of reference'), and outline the notion of 'discourse referent' (broadly in the sense in which it was first introduced by Karttunen, 1976) and the device by means of which it is located within a discourse model (the 'linguistic reflex' of a discourse referent). There is a section expanding the brief comments made in 1.0 on the intimate relationship between deixis and anaphora, and finally a section illustrating the operation of and interaction between these two important discourse functions within the context of French pronominal (gender- and number-marked) anaphors occurring both with and without a textual 'antecedent trigger' (as I call the expression traditionally known as 'antecedent'). Chapter 6 examines the process of agreement within the

5

Introduction context both of its cohesion-indicating function and of its relationship with anaphora proper. It is shown that agreement, too, is a semantically as well as pragmatically sensitive phenomenon, and that various types of agreement correlate with certain types of pronominal anaphora proper. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of the interrelationship between coherence and cohesion in permitting certain combinations of agreement types within a single construction (cf. Corbett's 1979, 1983 'Agreement Hierarchy'). Chapter 7 briefly reviews the findings of the previous five main chapters and attempts to arrive at a synthesis in which the complementary discourse roles of 'strict' and referential sub-types of anaphora are delineated.

NOTES 1. Namely,ava- (in composition) 'back', 'again', and -E:pw (as a verb) 'to bring', 'to carry', 'to support'. The Greek-English Lexicon of 1940 (9th edition) (H.G. Liddell & R. Scott, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p.l25) gives (amongst others), the senses 'carrying back, referring, reference of a thing to a standard', as well as 'a report'. It also indicates (p.l25) that the noun'sadjectival form avaopikos signifies "'standing in relation': in Grammar, 'relative'." Indeed, the set of forms we now call 'relative pronouns' are so termed precisely because the Latin translation of this Greek adjective was relativus, itself related to the Latin verb referre, 'to refer'. The latter was itself cognate with the Greek verb avaE:PW (='carry back', as we have seen). Thus it can be said that the relative pronouns, in Greek and Latin, were so called because they were considered the anaphoric pronouns par excellence (Lyons, personal communication, and (1977: 659-660); see also 3.1.3 and 3.2.3 below). 2. Cf. the early TG notion of 'precede-and-command' as a parameter reaulating so-called 'backwards pronominalization' 1 and the later notion 'c(onstituent)-command' (see note 4, Chapter 5, and, for explanation and justification, Reinhart, 1983: 18-25), which purportedly regulates both 'forwards' and 'backwards' anaphora. 3. In more recent EST approaches, the constraints put forward are predominantly 'negative' rather than 'positive' in effect. Thus, Lasnik (1976) claimed that the only anaphora rule required in a grammar is one which states which NPs in a sentence may not determine the reference of a (pronominal) anaphor; in Chomsky (1981), ~the three 'binding' rules put forward (see note 4, Chapter 3, below), only one (the 'anaphor' rule) is positively stated, the other two being, by implication at least, negative. Reinhart (1983), from Chapter 7 on, argues that binding or anaphora rules for the latter two types of anaphor (which she does not in fact distinguish, considering pronouns other than 'anaphors', as well as 'lexical NPs', as essentially manifesting 'coreference' rather than 'anaphora' per se) need not be stated at all in the grammar, their interpretation being almost entirely a matter of pragmatics (cf. in particular, Reinhart 1983:7.4, pp 163-170).

6

Chapter Two TYPES OF ANAPHORA IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH

2.0

INTRODUCTION

In order to specify the nature and functions of anaphora in English and French, we must first have an idea of the range of anaphoric processes available in the two languages. The purpose of this chapter is to present a preliminary classification of this range, in order to provide a basis for the more detailed analysis of 'strict' nominal anaphora and predicate anaphora in Chapters 3 and 4 respectively. Examples of agreement phenomena, which I am also viewing as exhibiting anaphora, are presented and discussed in Chapter 6. Studies of anaphora rarely present a classification of the full range of different types of anaphoric relation available in the language under consideration, yet this is essential if its fundamental properties are to be properly defined. Three recent important works on anaphora (in English), namely Wasow (1979b),Webber (1979) and Koster (1979), do present classifications, yet these are restricted to non-lexical, 'grammatical' anaphoric relations; Wasow, indeed, follows the most widespread trend in focusing more particularly, once his classification is established, upon nominal pronominal anaphora involving a relation of coreference. This latter variety is most frequently taken as representative of anaphora as a whole in the majority of studies of the phenomenon.l There are a number of different ways of classifying anaphoric relations in natural languages: one may draw a broad distinction between lexical and non-lexical anaphora, between nominal and non-nominal anaphora, between referential and non-referential anaphora, or between strict anaphora (where 'antecedent' - here, the controller - and anaphor are involved in an essentially grammatical relation) and discourse anaphora (where antecedent-trigger and anaphor are subject to much less stringent restrictions). Basically, it is the 7

Types of Anaphora in English and French properties of the anaphor, together with the discourse as well as grammatical status of the segments containing the anaphor and the antecedent-trigger (where there is one), which determine the nature of the anaphoric relation established. In somewhat broader terms, however, anaphoric relations may be defined in terms of the syntactic status of the antecedent-trigger and its anaphor; in terms of the semantic or pragmatic relation in terms of which anaphora is established between the two expressions; or in terms of some other (e.g. phonetic) parameter by means of which an identity relation may be established between the two expressions. It is on this basis that I shall present a classification of anaphoric relations in English and French in what follows. It must nevertheless be borne in mind (cf. Chapter 1) that, apart from 'strict' anaphora, anaphora (as I am viewing it) is not a purely intra-textual phenomenon between two expressions cooccurring in the co-text, but is a relation holding between an anaphor occurring therein and a 'linguistic reflex' or description marking the existence of a discourse referent within a discourse model. The antecedent-trigger of the anaphor may or may not co-occur within the co-text. In any case, its presence is by no means a necessary condition for the establishment of anaphora (cf. 1.0). The survey which follows is not intended to be exhaustive. 2.1

MORPHO-SYNTACTICALLY DEFINED ANAPHORIC RELATIONS

As might be expected, syntactically-defined anaphoric relations are ones in which the anaphor is always a non-lexical, grammatical 'pro-form' 2 • In the normal case, the occurrence of such an anaphor will restrict the addressee's search for an appropriate 'antecedent' to a certain specific syntactic type of expression; however, it is the grammatical properties of the clause in which the anaphor occurs (in particular, the lexico-grammatical properties of the verb of the anaphoric clause) which delimit most narrowly the range of syntactic candidates that may be selected as the 'antecedent' term. Reflexive and other types of 'bound anaphora', complement subject control, and restrictive-relative anaphora are not illustrated here, since these sub-types of what I am calling 'strict' anaphora are studied in Chapter 3. (For the time being, I will as far as possible italicize in the examples presented both the 'antecedent-trigger' - a class of textually occurring expressions which subsumes those expressions that would be traditionally analysed as 'antecedents' - and the anaphor involved in each relation. I am also provisionally making the (counterfactual, as I have indicated, and as will become apparent later) assumption that 8

Types of Anaphora

~n

English and French

anaphora is always describable in terms of a textually delimitable segment which fulfils the role of 'antecedent' to an anaphor). 2.1.1 Noun anaphora By noun anaphora, I mean those anaphoric relations which may hold between a non-lexical 'pro-form' and the head noun or nominal group (i.e. N in the X-bar notation: see Jackendoff, 1977) of a Noun Phrase. It correlates with the semanticallydefined type commonly termed 'Identity-of-Sense' anaphora, in which the 'antecedent' and anaphor are related in terms of their sense, but not reference (neither the 'antecedent' nor its anaphor being in such instances independent referring expressions). In the following examples, the segments corrresponding to the 'antecedent' and the anaphor are italicized. (l)a Though George was able to afford a brand-new car, Denis could only afford a second-hand one. 3 b George's car was brand-new, but Denis's ¢was second-hand. c ' ... Before then, the generally accepted 'external view' of Africa's history had been that there was none ... ' (B.Davidson 1984, Africa in History, Paladin, p. 13). d ' ... Some industries were doing well- but there were not enough of them ... 1 (BBC Radio 4, 19.8.80). (2)a Alors que Georges pouvait s'offrir une voiture toute neuve, Denis devait se contenter d'une ¢ {d'o~casion} anc1enne 'Whereas George was able to afford a brand-new car, Denis had to put up with a {second-hand}one'. (n) old b ' ..• le leader de la majorite sortante dans la nouvelle Assembl~e. elue apres la dissolution de l'actuelle ¢... I (Le Monde, 5.5.81, p.2). 'the leader of the outgoing majority in the new Parliament, to be elected after the dissolution of the present one'. c ' ... pacte qui permet d'embaucher des d~butants taillables et corv~ables ~ merci et de les virer au bout de six mois pour en reprendre d'autres •.• ' (Le Monde, 29.1.81, p.29). ' .•. a national (employment) agreement which enables firms to take on novices who are talliable and liable to forced

9

Types of Anaphora in EngUsh and French Labour at wiLL and then to get rid of them after six months in order to take on others •.• ' In the English examples (l)a-d, it is clear that the anaphor is acting in each case as head of the NP constituent in which it occurs (namely, [Art + Adj + one]NP in (l)a, [Det + ¢lNP in (l)b, [Neg + a + one]NP (realised as a single morpheme) in (l)c, and [them]~p in (l)d). It is this immediate grammatical context which requires of any potential 'antecedent' that it have, likewise, Nor N status. One(s), the null anaphor and (evidently) th~m may alternatively be anaphoric to NPs as well as Ns and Ns, and this possibility is, similarly, determined by their assuming NP status within the anaphoric segment. Likewise, the null anaphor and en in French may alternatively act as anaphors to NP 'antecedents', and again their anaphoric status depends on the grammatical function they are assuming within the anaphoric clause. In the elliptical examples (l)b and (2)a,b, it is the stranded determiner or determiner + adjective in combination which acts as a signal of anaphora: being no longer (pro-)clitic, it must be assigned a relatively high degree of stress as well as pitch, since it is now both referentially and syntactically independent. 2.1.2

Noun-Phrase anaphora

This type of anaphora is the one which has received most widespread attention in English, French and other languages (cf. for example, Reinhart, 1983, which is exclusively concerned with pronominal NP anaphora, both referential and non-referential, in English). It is the type in the analysis of which the notion of 'coreference' has been invoked, noun phrases, unlike nouns, being potentially referring expressions. However, the term 'coreference' has been abusively extended to analyses of other types of anaphora (e.g. VP and Sentence anaphora), to which it is strictly speaking inapplicable. Moreover, there has ·been a strong tendency in the literature, particularly among generative linguists, to confuse coreference with anaphora. Examples of NP anaphora in the two languages f~llow. (N.B. In (3) and (4), exceptionally, I use indices to indicate anaphora. These should not be taken to imply coreference in every instance, however). (3)

Geoffreyi bought a car which had no exhaust pipej,and within two days itj was back in the garage k whic}zkhad sold itj to hi'ffli.·

(4)

La significationlde ce roman1echappe a Jeann. ILn a m p conclu qu'ilm n'enl a pas. Seul Georges 0 dit qu'il 0 Lap saisit.

10

Types of Anaphora &n English and French 'The meaningiof this nove~ escapes Jeann. Henhas come to the conclusion that m Pitmhasn't any ¢1. Only Georges 0 says he 0 grasps itp.' One feature distinguishing the two languages as far as the realisation of anaphora is concerned is the possession by French of the category of grammatical gender, a feature which is put to use in distinguishing potential 'antecedents'. The il in the second sentence of (4) and the la in the third may have as their 'antecedents' ce roman (masculine) and la signification de ce roman (feminine), respectively. Note that in the English translation of this example, where the pronoun it is used in each case, it is only the context-sensitive semantics of the governing verbs (have and grasp, respectively) which support this distinction. Note also that the en of the second sentence of (4) is anaphoric only to the head noun of the complex NP la significatio~ de ce roman in the initial sentence (likewise, the null anaphor occurring in the anaphoric NP any ¢ in the English translation has as its 'antecedent' the bare head noun meaning of the subject NP the meaning of this novel). But en is by no means restricted to 'antecedents' of this syntactic type (as was pointed out in 2.1.1): (5)

Jacques est fier de sa nouvelle voiture. Il a demande a tous ses amis ce qu'ils en pensent. 'Jacques is proud of his new car. He has asked all his friends what they think ofi~'

Finally, observe that the form of the pronoun (in French, at least) is partially determined by the grammatical structure of the verb to which it is attached: in (5), the verb construction in the anaphoric segment is penser + de + NP, determining the oblique pronoun en 5 • This is yet another property of anaphors which indicates their syntactic independence in relation to their 'antecedents'. As far as reflexive and relative pronouns in the two languages are concerned, though the former are always anaphoric to NP 'antecedents', it may be argued that the latter have N or NP 'antecedents' depending on whether they are functioning as restrictive or non-restrictive relatives: in the case of restrictive relatives, the relative clause has an adjectival function modifying its head noun only (hence the well-known fact that the degree of referentiality of the relativized NP is not affected by the addition of a restrictive relative clause); while in the case of non-restrictive relatives, the clause is asserted, questioned, denied, etc. independently of the matrix 'antecedent'-containing clause, and so the relative pronoun is referential, having the 11

Types of Anaphora in English and French entire 'relativized' NP as its 'antecedent'. Further discussion and arguments in favour of this analysis will be given in Chapter 3 (cf. 3.1.3 and 3.2.3). The factors pinpointed so far, then, clearly suggest the inadequacy of any account of anaphora which purports to account for the phenomena in question solely or mainly in terms of the syntactic category of either, or both, the 'antecedent' and the anaphor. 2.1.3 Verb anaphora This type of anaphora is realised by the process termed 'gapping' 6 or by the use of an overt pro-verb: (6)a b

(7)a

John hit a nail with a hammer, and Paul with a stone.

¢

a drawing-pin

Patrick demonstrated yesterday in favour of nuclear disarmament, and Henry will do (so) tomorrow in favour of clean air. Jean prendra une chambre au premier etage, et Georges une au second.

¢

'Jean will take a room on the first floor, and Georges ¢one on the second'. b

Yves parle plus pendant cinq minutes que ne fait Jacques en une journee! 'Yves talks more in five minutes than Jacques does in a day!'

However, just as in the case of 'pro-forms' able to realise both Noun and Noun Phrase anaphora, it appears that both the null proform and the same overt pro-verb may equally well function as anaphors when the 'antecedent' is a Verb Phrase rather than a bare Verb: (8) (9)

John hit the nail with a hammer, and Paul stone.

¢ with a

Patrick demonstrated yesterday in favour of nuclear and Henry does next week.

disarmament~

(10)

Jean prendra une chambre au premier Georges ¢ aussi.

~tage,

et

'Jean will take a room on the first

floor~

and Georges

¢ too.' 12

Types of Anaphora in English and French Yves raconte bien plus de blagues que ne fait Jacques. 'Yves tells ~a~y_m~r~-jokes than Jacques does'.

(11)

Once more, it is the immediate grammatical context of the anaphor which determines the syntactic nature of its potential 'antecedents', for the 'antecedent' clauses in (6), (7) and (8)-(11) remain more or less constant in each case. 2.1.4 Verb-Phrase anaphora Apart from the forms indicated in the preceding sub-section, among the pro-forms realising this type of anaphora are, in English: stranded auxiliaries, bare infinitives, do S0 3 do it/ this/that; and in French: {y/en/le} + certain modal auxiliaries and full verbs, including faire, and verbs of the latter two categories + cela!?a. (12)a

Bill will only present his apologies if Fred does too.

¢

b

Jim did go to the meeting on Saturday 3 after all. Philip wanted to ¢, but couldn't

c

Patrons who leave the auditorium before the end of the performance are requested to do so quietly.

d

No-one expected that John would be able to run a mile in under three minutes - but he did it!

(13)a

'En cas d'arret prolonge entre stations, il est interdit de descendre sur Za voie avant d'y avoir ete invite par les agents de la RATP' (Notice in Paris metro coaches).

¢.

'In the event of an extended stop between stations, it is prohibited to alight onto the line before being asked to do so by a RATP official'. b

Jacques parle de quitter son emploi actuel. Il en parle depuis un certain temps deja. 'Jacques says he wants to leave his present job. He's been talking of 1:t for quite some time now'.

c

Non seulement le gouvernement peut suivre cette politique 3 il le doit. 'Not only can the government pursue this policy 3 it must ¢ '.

13

Types of Anaphora in English and French d

Non seulement le gouvernement peut suivre cette politique, i l doit le faire. 'Not only can the government pursue this it must do so'.

policy~

The stranded auxiliaries and bare infinitives in the English examples (12)a,b perform a function identical to the stranded determiner in (l)b (see also the article and determiner + preposed adjective combinations in the French examples (2)a and b), in the case of Noun anaphora (this point is also made by Schachter, 1978). That is, as 'Phrase Specifiers', in the X-bar terminology adopted in EST, they signal the syntactic incompleteness of the constituent they introduce; hence they cannot undergo stress reduction and consequent phonetic weakening. In other words, as in the case of the Noun anaphors in (l)b and (2)a,b, the real anaphor in such instances is the null anaphor. The French examples in (13) provide further evidence that the oblique pronouns y and en are determined not by the syntactic status of their 'antecedents', but by the structure of the verb to which they are attached (i.e. inviter ~(cela) in (13)a, and parler de (cela) in (13)b). 2 .1. 5

Sentence anaphora

(14)

Max speaks excellent Hungarian, and he knows it.

It is clear that certain types of clauses, infinitives and (in English) gerunds may function as grammatical subjects and objects, thereby assuming the status of a noun phrase. Sentences, however, are not noun phrases. However, when an independent sentence such as (14) acts as an antecedent trigger to an appropriate pronoun, the latter is in reality referring to the proposition expressed by that sentence, to which the anaphor's governing factive verb (know) in the asserted anaphoric clause has assigned a factual (i.e. entity-like) status (see 4.1.1.3). The French clitic pronouns neuter le, y and en, and the disjunctive neuter demonstratives cela and 9a, like English it, this and that, may act as anaphors to a sentential, as well as verb-phrasal, antecedent-trigger.

The pro-adverb so may also be used as an anaphor with sentential antecedent-triggers, although the interpretation to which it systematically gives rise is distinct from that of 'propositional' it (cf. also Bolinger, 1970 and Cushing, 1972): (15) 14

Does the race take place this afternoon? I believe so.

Types of Anaphora in English and French Comparable French examples are as follows: (16)a

'Avez-vous tout

pr~vu?

De nombreux chefs d'entreprise le croyaient ••. ' (Advertisement, Le Monde, 26.10.71). 'Have you thought of everything? Many company directors believed they had~·.

b

'Combien sont-ils [= les agents des Renseignements Generaux]? Le ministre de l'Interieur ne veut pas le dire' (Le Nouvel Observateur, 2.8.71). 'How many of them [=agents of the General Intelligence Service] are there? The minister for the Interior will not say~·.

(17)

'Ils n'osent y croire mais c'est bien en fait~ un nouveau Kenya que paraissent r~ver auJourd'hu7 les Blancs de Rhod~sie'. (Le Nouvel Observateur, 24.3.80). 'They hardly dare believe it, but it's indeed a re-run of Kenya that the Whites of Rhodesia appear-to be seeing in their imagination today'.

(18)a

' .•• Tout est gratuit, ce jardin, cette ville et moimeme. Quand il arrive qu'on s'en rende compte, ~a vous tourne le coeur et tout se met a flotter •.• ' (J.P. Sartre, La Nausee).

' .•. Everything is gratuitous, this garden, this town and myself. When it happens that you realise it, it turns your stomach and everything begins to get hazy •.• ' b

Pierre ne viendra pas sans que j'en sois averti.

(Ex. (1) in Ch. 3 of Ducrot, 0. 1973, La Preuve et Le Dire, Reperes, Editions Marne, p. 72).

'Pierre won't come without my knowing about it'. There are various factors suggested by examples (16) - (18) which indicate that the relation obtaining between antecedenttrigger and anaphor may not be an entirely syntactic one at all. The antecedent-triggers in (16)a and b, for instance, exhibit an interrogative structure which evidently could not be said to underlie their sentential anaphors. Similarly, the antecedent-trigger in (18)b manifests a negative declarative structure, which does not underlie the pronoun (at least, not under one of the two possible interpretations of the latter, as Ducrot himself points out (op.cit. p. 72f)). If the relation can be viewed as one between the anaphor and 15

Types of Anaphora in English and French the proposition expressed by the antecedent-trigger sentence, however (seep. 14 above), then the interrogative and negative properties of these sentences may more satisfactorily be described as sentence modalities or operators located outsidethe proposition in semantic structure, but having the sentences in question within their logical scope. (This kind of analysis is convincingly argued for by Webber, 1979, and is hinted at by Wasow, 1979b). Moreover, it is not always possible, or simple, to locate the actual segment of surrounding discourse which corresponds to the 'antecedent' of an anaphor in any particular instance, a factor which itself suggests that the relation between the two elements is not a formal-syntactic one. An example of this is (18)a, where it is unclear whether the 'antecedent' corresponds only to the segment Tout est gratuit 3 or includes ce jardin 3 cette ville et moi-m~me (the contextually preferred interpretation of the pronoun en here renders the latter choice unlikely). It seems to be the case that pinpointing and italicizing 'antecedent' segments is generally easier (as well as being a more meaningful exercise) in the case of ellipsis as well as 'Identity-of-Sense' anaphora (cf. one, none and them in (l)a, c and d, respectively) than in the case of definite or phrasal anaphora. Before turning to the question of the semanticallyrelevant aspects of anaphoric relations in the next section, I would like to mention some further facts concerning the French neuter clitic le 3 which throw additional doubt on the advisedness of viewing 'antecedent'-anaphor relations in essentially syntactic (or indeed, textual) terms. We have already seen that le can act as anaphor to 'antecedents' which are sentential, clausal and verb-phrasal. But it may also be anaphoric to 'antecedents' which, though syntactically diverse in nature, have in common the fact that they function as predicates:

Noun Phrase (predicate nominal) (19)a

'Si Chaban est candidat 3 Giscard et Edgar Faure Ze seront aussi'. (J. Chirac, in L'Express, 18-24.8.79) 'If Chaban is a candidate 3 [i.e. for the then forthcoming Presidential election in France], Giscard and Edgar Faure will be ¢ too'.

b

16

'Un chef d'entreprise et son equipe doivent ~tre Pourront-ils l'etre si l'on tisse autour d'eux une toile d'araignee qui les paralyse?' (Le Nouvel Observateur, 9.2.81, p. 25).

des innovateurs.

Types of AnaphoPa in English and FPench 'A company director and his team must be innovatoPs. But can they be so if they find a paralysing spider's web spun around them?'

PPepositional PhPase 'Les ouvriers du port du Havre sont en gP~Ve 3 et ils le seront pendant un long moment' (France Inter, 1979).

(20)

'The workers at the part of Le Havre are on stPike 3 and will be[SjJ for some time'.

Adjective PhPase (2l)a

Cet arbre n'est pas encore gPand3 mais il le deviendra rapidement. 'This tree is not big yet, but it very soon will

b

be~·.

'Le nouveau geste de M. Chirac sera re~u par les amis de M.Giscard d'Estaing comme un soutien confirm~, meme s'il l'est toujours du bout des levres' (Le Monde, 8.5.81, p.ll). 'This new move by M. Chirac will be seen by the friends of V.G.E. as confirmation of his. support, even if it is still only half-hearted'.

c

' ••• Les problemes pos~s par !'infrastructure deficiente des villes dortoirs des banlieues des grandes villes industrielles le sont d'une fa~on brutale pour la population ouvriere, qui emploie, pour les resoudre, les procedes ••• d'usage courant dans les conflits de travail' (Le Monde Diplomatique, Feb. 1974, p.6). 'The problems posed by the defective infrastructure of the dormitory towns in the suburbs of the large industrial cities are acutely so for the working population, who, to resolve them, have recourse to methods ••. which are in current use in industrial disputes'.

Example (20) provides further evidence for the view that the formal-syntactic structure exhibited by the 'antecedent' expression is relatively unimportant as a determinant of the form taken by its anaphoric pro-form, its functional status as predicate here taking precedence in determining neuter le (as opposed to y or en. See also, in this connection, the same point madeabouten as a nominal anaphor on p.ll, and about y and en as VP anaphors on p. 14 above). Examples (21)b and c (which are by no means marginal) show the same re17

Types of Anaphora

~n

English and French

structuring function assumed by the anaphor that we noted in the case of sentential (or, more accurately, 'propositional') le: here, the predicate anaphor isolates the predicative component of the relevant NP, in both cases a past participle functioning as attributive adjective, and assigns a predicative function to it. Such a process is again only characterisable at the level of discourse, and is a further example of the dynamic nature of anaphora. (2l)c is especially interesting, in that the elements composing the antecedent-trigger NP are first separated through the detachment of its attributive adjective, which is assigned a predicative status by the anaphoric relation contracted with neuter le. Subsequently, however, a plural definite pronoun (les) is used to effect anaphoric reference via the full initial NP, thus 're-uniting' the parts which had earlier been separated. The same phenomenon is exemplified in (2l)b, yet here the effect is not so marked, since the nominal pronoun (il) precedes rather than follows the predicate one (le). We shall see certain more extreme examples of this phenomenon later on (in Chapter 4 in particular), in which the use of a predicate anaphor assigns predicative status to the (head) noun of an adjectiveless NP. Let us briefly recapitulate the conclusions of this section. These are as follows: (a) The use of a non-lexical anaphor determines (to some degree) both the syntactic and the semantic nature of any potential 'antecedent'; (b) The grammatical structure of the main verb of the anaphorcontaining clause further narrows the choice of 'antecedent', as well as (in the case of French) determining the form of the anaphor; (c) The wider grammatical context of the clause, phrase or group in which the anaphor occurs further restricts the range of potential 'antecedents' (that is, it limits it to 'antecedents' performing a syntactic or grammatical function which is equivalent to the one assumed by the anaphor); (d) As a corollary, non-lexical anaphors enjoy some degree of flexibility in terms of the syntactic types of expression which may serve as their 'antecedents'; (e) Though all (non-'strict') anaphoric relations involve a referential link between the anaphor and a discourse entity or referent (see, e.g. Karttunen, 1976, and Webber, 1979, for these terms), there is a broad division between those types of (non-lexical) anaphora which involve an essential (i.e. grammatically-based) connection between a surface textual

18

Types of Anaphora

~n

English and French

segment (the antecedent-trigger) and the anaphor, and those which contract a much looser connection with such a segment, if they do at all. The first category includes noun, nounphrasal, verb and verb-phrasal ellipsis, as well as 'Identityof-Sense' anaphora (e.g. one, en), and the second concerns definite or indefinite overt pro-form anaphora. 2.2

SEMANTICALLY-DEFINED ANAPHORIC RELATIONS

In 2.1, we have seen ample evidence that even non-lexical anaphoric relations do not readily lend themelves to analysis in wholly, or chiefly, syntactic (or textual) terms. The semantic as well as discourse import of (non-lexical) anaphora is by now fairly clear. Let us examine, then, some of the semantic as well as pragmatic relations in terms of which anaphora may be established in the two languages under investigation. In this section, in contrast to the preceding one, the anaphoric relations illustrated are all lexically based (that is, the anaphor is constructed with a lexical head), and hence are nominal.

2.2.1 Synony0Y (22) Albert walked proudly over to his new motor car, got in, and turned the ignition key. There was no reaction. He tried again and again, but the automobile just wouldn't start. (23)

'Une nuit, quelque part dans un department de l'Ouest. Toutes les polices sont en alerte. On signale que deux malfaiteurs ~vad~s de prison tentent de fuir la region dans une voiture volee. Elle se presente devant un barrage, fonce ... Les policiers ouvrent le feu. L'un des bandits est tue, l'autre retourne en prison .. ' (Le Monde, 15.11.80, p.l). 'One night, somewhere in a department in the Western region (of France). All the police forces are on the alert. It is reported that two criminals on the run from prison are trying to escape from the region in a stolen car. It arrives at a road-block, surges through ... The policemen open fire. One of the villains is killed, the other returned to prison ... '

Out of context, there is a relation of mutual entailment (or 'co-hyponymy') between motor car and automobile ((22)) and between malfaiteur and bandit ((23)). It is this relationship, together with the indexicality signalled by the definite determiners which introduce the NPs of which these lexemes 19

Types of Anaphora in English and French form the head, which permits anaphora in each instance. Anaphora as well as coreference is involved in each case, since out of context, the anaphors may refer to a range of other individuals in addition to the referents of their respective 'antecedents'·

2.2.2 Hyponymy A more usual way of constructing a lexically-based anaphoric NP, perhaps, is via the relation of hyponymy, where the noun heading the anaphor denotes a property or class of entities which is superordinate in relation to that denoted by the 'antecedent''s head noun or verb. One reason for the higher degree of frequency of lexical anaphors constructed on this basis rather than on that of synonymy (i.e. mutual entailment) may be that it signals more clearly, on the semantic level, the asymmetrical dependency that is the hallmark of anaphora. 7 Examples follow: (24)a

b

(25)

' ••• If the course of the argument has led far from the original definition of anaphora to a point where that phenomenon may seem irrelevant, well and good'. (Stenning, 1978, p.200). A bomb exploded yesterday in a car belonging to a well-known magistrate. No-one was hurt, but the vehicle was completely destroyed. Jean vient d'acquerir un beau chat siamois. Il en est tr~s content. Quant a sa femme, elle ne peut pas supporter l'animal. 'Jean has just acquired a beautiful Siamese cat. He is very happy with it. As for his wife, she can't bear the animal'.

Note, in (24)a, the use of the lexically more specific anaphor that phenomenon instead of the pronoun it, since this would have led to referential ambiguity and hence to the expression of a different proposition than the one intended: it could have had either the original definition of anaphora or anaphora as its'antecedent'. It is presumably also this need to differentiate these two potential antecedents' which has motivated the use of the demonstrative determiner that in place of the unmarked definite article here.

2.2.3 'Contextual-status assignment' More common even than hyponymy as the basis on which to cons20

Types of Anaphora in

Eng~ish

and French

truct a lexically-based anaphor, however, is the phenomenon that might be termed 'contextual-status assignment'. This is like 'hyponymic' anaphora in that the anaphor's lexical head is superordinate in relation to its 'antecedent'. However, the relationship is much less systematic, and depends more upon the discourse status which the speaker wishes to accord the referent of his 'antecedent'· In a similar fashion to the non-lexical anaphoric relations discussed in 2.1, such instances specify the role which the speaker is assigning to a discourse referent already introduced into the discourse model. Examples follow: (26)a

b

[Subtitle of article] 'Janet Taylor explains why the death of her daughter moved her to put the experience down in words'. (The Guardian, 22.5.84, p.lO). 'In the sixth continent, Asia, Eng~ish is the and the rise of Japan has reinforced the trend' (Times Higher Educational Supplement, 1.3.80, p.lO).

commercia~ ~anguage,

c

d

(27)a

If Ann had obeyed me, she would not have married John. Now she has to pay for her decision (example from Bellert, 1970, p.336). 'Supporters of hunger-striker Bobby Sands say that but representatives of the Prison Authorities have denied the a~~egation'. (Radio Luxemburg, 3.5.81).

he is now in a coma,

a

'Vingt Po~onais ant reussi, mardi ~9 octobre, gagner clandestinement ~a Suede bard d 1un avian d I epandage, Les fugitifs (sept hommes, huit femmes et cinq

a

enfants en bas age) ont demande l'asile politique' (Le Monde, 21.10.82, p.4).

'Twenty Po~es succeeded, on Tuesday, ~9th October, in secret~y reaching Sweden on board a crop-spraying

p~ane.

The fugitives (seven men, eight women and five very young children) have requested political asylum'. b

a

'Un lecteur, M.Hanville, professeur Caen, a releve, au cours du journal de TF 1, lundi 26 juin, cette 'preCiSiOn I donnee a prOpOS de 1 1 attentat de Versailles, par un journaliste: 'La bombe avait ete deposee derriere la statue de Cuvier ••• illustre paleontologue, et ce qui est 21

Types of Anaphom in English and French curieux - car je me suis renseigne, je me suis reporte au dictionnaire -auteur d'un livre sur le terrorisme et les revolutions du globe'! La bourde est de taille, note M. Hanville ••. ' (Le Monde, 'Revolution et Revolution', 2-3.7.78, p.6). 'One of our readers, M. Hanville, a teacher in Caen, has noted the following 'clarification' made by a commentator during the TF 1 news on Monday, 26th June, regarding the Versailles bomb outrage: 'The bomb was placed behind the statue of Cuvier •.• a famous paleontologist, and, interestingly enough for I made inquiries, I consulted the dictionary - the author of a book on terrorism and the revolutions of the planet!' The howler is a big one, observes M. Hanville .•. ' Notice that all of these examples involve in their interpretation the drawing of inferences based upon the discourse context, including factors such as the speaker's likely motivation in using the expressions he/she does, and knowledge of the world. As such, the basis for anaphoric relations of this type is more pragmatic than in the case of the types illustrated in 2.2.1 and 2.2.2. Apart from (27)a, all the referents of the lexical anaphors in this sub-section are 'second-order' entities (cf. Lyons 1977: 442-445 for discussion of his important ontological distinction between 'first-', 'second-' and 'third-order' entities) 8 , viz.: an event in (26)a, a process in (26)b, an (epistemic) act in (26)c, an assertion in (26)d, and a verbal act in (27)b). Furthermore, apart from (26)a, none of the antecedent-triggers of the anaphors in (26) and (27) is nominal in character (except, of course, the that- clause in (26)d - but it is evidently not an inherently nominal NP). Likewise, the antecedent the death of her daughter in (26)a, though syntactically an NP, may be analysed as containing a de-verbal noun head; that it is the verbal ('event') rather than nominal ('fact') interpretation (i.e. Lyons's 'second-order intensional entity': see note 8) which is intended is signalled precisely by the use of an anaphor whose head noun connotes (shared) suffering and denotes an event. The suspicion that this type of anaphora does not in fact involve a syntactic (or textual) relation at all is reinforced by the difficulty, and even impossibility, of delimiting the surface segment which might correspond to the antecedent-trigger (recall the same point made in 2.1.5, pp.l5-16, in connection with the antecedent-triggers of non-lexical (phrasal) sentence anaphors). Indeed, this has not even been attempted in (26)c or (27)b (where the underlined NP cette pr~cision is taken to be anaphoric to the same discourse referent as la bourde). In the former case, as Bellert herself points out 22

Types of Anaphora

~n

English and French

(ibid.,p.336), in order to interpret correctly the indexical phrase her decision, the addressee of this utterance must have inferred on the basis of the preceding context that Ann hasnot obeyed the speaker, and has in fact married John, and that this was the result of a deliberate decision on her part. Thus the discourse referent of her decision may be described as 'Ann's decision not to obey the speaker, and to marry John in spite of the speaker's injunction that she should not do so'. In (27)b, the writer (i.e. both the Le Monde reader M. Hanville and the journalist reporting the former's letter) assumes, through the use of the anaphor la bourde, that the reader has been able to infer the absurdity of the TF 1 news commentator's 'clarification' from the preceding context. In (27)a, the lexical anaphor les fugitifs does not refer simply to the referent of Vingt Polonais, but to the one having this description in addition to the properties attributed to it by the complex predication in the whole initial sentence of this discourse. The description which would correspond to this referent, as in the case of the other examples in (26) and (27), is of course not a constituent of the sentence from which it is derived. 2.2.4 ~atic (factual) knowledge concerning referent Aspects of factual knowledge concerning the referent of the antecedent'may also be drawn upon to construct a lexical anaphor. Knowledge of this type can be divided into two broad categories: on the one hand, general 'encyclopedic' knowledge (properties of entities as well as possible relations between them, causes and consequences of actions and events, and so on); and on the other, culture-specific, as well as personal, knowledge of individuals, objects, institutions, etc. Reliance on the former type is illustrated in (28) and (29): (28)a

b

' ... and we have done this with such a success that a reliable outline of Africa's history is now available from the present to times of a remote antiquity. Many basic themes which have shaped and informed that history are clear today, and indicate the essential unities of thought and experience which underlie the great diversities of this continent's cultural and social processes over the past six thousand years' (B. Davidson (1984) Africa in History, Paladin, p.l3).

['Etonians and the era of fagging' (title of article)] Shelley refused to be one and suffered many cruel torments; Tom Brown had his bottom roasted for not being humble enough at it; and poor Edwin Cockburn was so bad that in 1730 he was murdered with a penknife by Thomas Dalton ... 23

Types of Anaphom in English and French The world of fagging in English public schools has a long history of such casualties, but there will be no more ••• ' (The Guardian, 25.4.80). '70% des entreprises qui ont ete victimes d'un

(29)

incendie important cessent leur activite dans les trois annees qui suivent le sinistre' (Advertisement,

Le Monde, 26.10.71).

'70% of firms suffering a serious fire stop working within three years of the disaster'. Use of specific factual knowledge is exemplified in (30) and (31) : (30)a

b

' ••• Mr. Hart's campaign in Washington has effectively acknowledged that if the senator is to gain the nomination, it will not be in the primaries and caucuses lying ahead'. (The Guardian, 21.4.84, p.8). 'A spokesman for 'The Daily Telegraph' said today that the newspaper would still be printed this week'. (BBC Radio 4, 13.11.83).

c

(3l)a

' ... The funeral [sc. of Mr. E. Berlinger, former Secretary-General of the Italian Communist Party] will take place tomorrow. Mr. Berlinger never held high office outside the party, because the Communists have never won a share of government power. That would normally exclude him from a state funeral, but it is possible that the honour will be extended to him'. (The Guardian, 12.6.84, p.7).

' ... La scolastique allait rompre cet equilibre et donner un usage nouveau a la rhetorique. Cette forme de pens~e a joue un role bien precis dans l'histoire de la pensee humaine ••. '(H. Portine, Apprendre a Argumenter. Analyse de Discours et Didactique des Langues, BELC, 1978, p. 47). 'Scholastic Philosophy was to break this equilibrium and provide a new role for rhetoric. This school of thought played a very specific part in the history of human thinking'.

b

24

' ••• Le nouveau geste de M. Chirac sera re~u par les amis de M. Giscard d'Estaing comme un soutien confirme, meme s'il l'est toujours du bout des levres. L'attitude du fondateur du RPR revele, en fait, son embarras et l'ambigu1te de sa position. Lemaire de Paris veut, en effet etre pret a parer a toute

Types of Anaphora in English and French eventualite ••• ••• Mais en se comportant de cette fa~on, le d~put~ de la Corr~ze n'ignore pas qu'il court aussi un risque politique ... ' (Extract from an article entitled 'M. Chirac se prononce davantage contre M. Mitterrand que pour M. Giscard d'Estaing', Le Monde, 8.5.81, p.ll). 'This new move by M. Chirac will be seen by the friends of V.G.E. as confirmation of his support, even if it is still only half-hearted'. The attitude of the founder of the RPR in reality reveals his embarrassment and the ambiguity of his position. The mayor of Paris wants, indeed, to be prepared for any outcome [sc. of the then forthcoming French Presidential election] ..• .•• But in behaving in this manner, the deputy for Corr~ze is not unaware that he is also running a political risk •.. ' (Title of article: 'M. Chirac comes out more against M. Mitterand than in favour of M. Giscard d'Estaing'). Now there are several important differences between the types of anaphor in (28) and (29), on the one hand, and in (30) and (31) on the other. First, the anaphors in the former group of examples, which are constructed via some very general item of knowledge about their referents, appear to be more similar to the hyponymic type illustrated in 2.2.2. That is, the extremely 'high-level' common-knowledge property of the referent used to form the descriptive part of the anaphor is analogous to the hyperonym, whose extension includes that of the head lexeme of its antecedent. The difference, of course, lies in the fact that the former property is one of the referent of the anaphor (and so is likely to be less systematically shared by addressee and speaker), whereas the latter is a property of its 'antecedent' lexeme, in other words, of a linguistic item. As such, it is likely to be much more systematically shared, in terms of the purely linguistic knowledge of the participants, by both speaker and addressee. However, the distinction between high-level encyclopedic (extensional) properties of lexemes and their linguisticsemantic (intensional) ones is notoriously difficult to draw with any degree of precision (cf. also Norrick, 1982). One possible experiment that would bear on this distinction might be to test the ease and speed with which native-speaker subjects process anaphoric relations using each of the two principles just described. The anaphors in the examples in (30) and (31), on the other hand, which are constructed in terms of some low-level, culture-specific item of knowledge of the referent of the anaphor, are more similar to the synonymic type illustrated in 25

Types of Anaphom in English and French 2.2.1. That is, the relatively higher degree of specificity of the information constituted by the descriptive component of the anaphor considerably reduces in each case,the dependency in relation to its antecedent which is necessary for an anaphoric interpretation of the two expressions. Lexically-based anaphors of this type thus tend to be interpreted as referentially autonomous, in Milner's (1982) terms, and the relation between 'antecedent' and 'anaphor' is correspondingly more likely to be interpreted as one of coreference without anaphora. In (30)a,b and (3l)b, unlike the examples in (28) and (29), there is a possibility of referential ambiguity in the interpretation of the definite descriptions, depending on whether the addressee happens to know that Mr. Hart is a senator ((30a)), that The Daily Telegraph is a newspaper ((JO)b) and that M. Chirac is the founder of the French political party known as the RPR ('Rassemblement Pour la Republique'), is the mayor of Paris and the deputy (MP) for Correze ((3l)b).9 Example (Jl)b provides an even clearer illustration of the possibility of this interpretative effect, and is typical of a certain journalistic style used to create variety and hence sustain the reader's interest (namely, so-called 'elegant variation'). This is indeed a pure example of the traditional definition of anaphora in classical Rhetoric as repetition: all the definite descriptions in (Jl)b have a unique referent within their universe of discourse; as such, they are independent referring expressions whose ability to corefer with the initially occurring NP M. Chirac is based upon highly specific extra-linguistic knowledge. The definite determiner which introduces each of the three definite descriptions in this example is motivated as much by the uniqueness of their referent as by the fact that they corefer with an expression whose discourse referent is presupposed already to have its place in the relevant discourse model. This property sets the definite descriptions in (3l)b apart from those in (30)a-c and (3l)a (and indeed, from examples (28)a,b and (29)), since the expressions in the latter group are not restricted to a unique referent within their respective universes of discourse. Through lack of space, I shall not illustrate any further semantically-defined types of anaphoric relation in this section. A number of them will, however, be examined during the remainder of this book; such types include 'as-sociative' anaphora (cf. Hawkins, 1978), a relation defined in terms of real-world factual knowledge, 'converse' antonymy, synechdoche, metonymy, metalinguistic anaphora (a relation bearing certain similarities to the 'contextualstatus' assigning type seen in 2.2.3.), anaphora realised through so-called 'pronominal epithets' (cf., e.g. 26

Types of Anaphora in EngLish and French Jackendoff, 1972) (a relation also having something in common with the contextual-status assigning type), and bound anaphora. 2.3 OTHER TYPES OF ANAPHORIC RELATIONS To complete this chapter, I shall illustrate some further ways in which an anaphoric relation may be realised in the two languages in question. These ways do not fall easily under either of the two broad headings so far retained, but concern, rather, a variety of formal methods in terms of which an identity relation may be expressed between two expressions. The anaphors involved are both lexically- and non-lexically based. First, an anaphor may be constructed on the basis of the repetition of the head lexeme of the antecedent and omission of any of its modifiers, together with a definite determiner signalling the existence of the referent of the expression as a whole within the universe of discourse: (32)

'The EngLish Consort of VioLs was founded by Marco Pallis and Richard Nicholson in the late 1930's and since 1950 has maintained a continuous series of performances of 16th and 17th century viol consort music ... In recent years, The Consort has been invited to play ... ' (Programme notes for concert by The EngLish Consort of VioLs, 20.6.79).

(33)

Le ministre de

L'Int~rieur, Monsieur Dupont, recevra aujourd'hui le Prefet de Police au cours d'un dejeuner officiel. Le ministre fera ensuite une declaration a la presse.

'The minister for the Interior, Monsieur Dupont, will receive today the Prefect of Police at an official lunch. The minister will then address the Press.' The nominal anaphor may also be constructed via a

partiaL formal repetition of its 'antecedent's' head lexeme,

with a change in the syntactic category which it initially manifested: (34)

' ... Further, to see villages and farms which have been linguistically 'pure' throughout recorded history invaded by aLLophones of a more mobiLe society can be a highly emotional experience for the group suffering the invasion' (K.D. McRae (1975) 'The principle of territoriality and the principle of personality in multilingual states', in Linguistics 158, pp. 48-9). 27

Types of Anaphora in English and French (35)

' ••• Du moins ne cherche-t-il [sc. F. Mitterrand] pas tant A eveiller la peur de l'autre qu'A apparaitre comme un rassembleur: ce qui l'a conduit A esquisser une comparaison avec le general de Gaulle passablement audacieuse. C'est pourtant bien lA l'esprit du gaullisme, qui a toujours voulu 'rassembler' les Fran~ais, l'ambition de laVe Republique etant de rendre ce rassemblement durable' (Le Monde, 5.5.8l,p.l2). 'At least he seeks not so much to awaken the fears of the other half of France as to appear as a 'rallyer', which has led him to suggest a fairly daring comparison with general de Gaulle. Yet it is precisely this which is the spirit of gaullism, which has always aimed to 'rally' the French, the ambition of the Fifth Republic being to make this rallying a lasting one'.

In both cases, the head noun of the lexical anaphor is a nominalized form of the verb which heads the anteceden~ verb phrase. A change in the syntactic category manifested by the head lexeme of the ~ntecedent'expression may also be seen in the case of pronominal anaphors, even though this is doubtless rarer in their case: (36)a 'Picketing will only be lawful if people are doing so outside their place of work' (ITN 27.2.80). b 'Users of this car park do so at their own risk' (Notice in carpark of The Falstaff hotel, Canterbury). c ' ••• He [sc. Patrick Jenkin, the then Environment Secretary] went on to claim that the allegedly highspending Labour authorities had, by so doing, damaged industry and lost jobs' (Times Higher Educational Supplement, 30.9.83, p.30). d 'The trouble is in Britain that there are no initiators [of policy in Ministries] -people try to ¢,but ••. ' (Interview, BBC Radio 3, 12.5.84).~ e 'We're experts at enlarging. Let us make some ¢ for you' (Photo-shop advertisement, cited in Carden and Miller (1970), p.555). f

28

'I'm not a farmer any more - because there simply isn't enough time to do it' (C.Mayhew, Interview, BBC Radio i· 2.6.79).

Types of Anaphora in English and French (37)a ' ••. du VIlle Plan, qui prevoyait la cr~ation de 5000 postes d'enseignants en cinq ans. Mille cinq cents l'ont ete au cours des deux premieres annees, ce qui veut dire qu'il faudra en creer 3500 dans les trois annees a venir' (Le Monde, Selection Hebdomadaire, 3-9.3.77,p.ll). ' •.. of the 8th Plan, which indicated the establishment of 5,000 teaching posts in five years. One thousand, five hundred have already been ¢ over the first two years, which means that it will be necessary to establish 3,500 in the next three years'. b

' .•• Tres recommande aussi, quand on le peut, est le passage [de capitaux ou de fonds} par le compte d'une firme ayant son si~ge au Luxembourg ... ' (Le Monde, 19.5.81, p.l4).

'Highly recommended too, when it can be done,is the transfer [of capital or funds} through the account of a firm having its head office in Luxemburg'. c

I • • • les condamn~s l'ont ete par .•. 27.5.84).

I

(France Inter,

(lit.) 'the men sentenced were ¢ by For each of these antecedent-trigger lexemes, there is a partially or completely homophonous,as well as morpholog±cally related, verb or noun which is inferrable from it in order to serve as the actual antecedent of the anaphor used. Examples (36) and (37) provide illustrations, albeit in somewhat extreme form, of the factor noted in 2.1 in connection with non-lexical anaphora: namely that it is the anaphor which determines the nature of its 'antecedent' (where there is one), but not vice versa. Notice that example (36)c, in particular, shows that the relation between antecedent trigger and anaphor is of a more essentially semantic rather than syntactic nature (cf. ?* .. by high spending ... ). These examples illustrate the same phenomenon which we saw in the French examples (2l)b and c earlier in this chapter, which involved sentential le; (36)c, indeed, is an exact English counterpart of this French phenomenon. It is this phenomenon, too, which is commonly referred to in the literature under the heading 'anaphoric islands' (cf. George is a trombonist, though he doesn't own one). But note that the types of anaphors exemplified in (36) and (37) indicate that the scope of the relationship is very much broader than is implied by the standard examples of 'anaphoric islandhood' given in the literature, which to my knowledge exclusively involve nominal antecedent triggers and anaphors. The true extent of this phenomenon might never have been appreciated if examples had been restricted exclus29

Types of Anaphora in English and French ively to invented sentences. A final, but perhaps even more marginal, way in which an anaphoric relation may be set up involves a relation of phonetic identity between the antecedent trigger and an inferrable homonym which serves as the actual 'antecedent' of the anaphor. Such a relationship invariably results in a semantic effect, such as zeugma. Webber (1979: Ch.3, p.9) refers to this possibility in connection with what she terms 'one-anaphora', giving (38)a (her example (16)) amongst other examples: (38)a My brother thinks both rhododendron plants and chemical ones pollute the atmosphere. b 'We'll keep your money working when you don't have to ~· (Advertisement in AUT Bulletin No. 109, June 1983, p.lO). c 'We spoil our customers, not~ their clothes' (Notice in window of Dry-Cleaning shop, Canterbury). (39)

'Grande Bretagne LA FAMILLE THATCHER SUR LA SELLETTE Les affaires du fils ne font pas celle de la mere' (Le Monde, 23.3.84, p.6). 'Great Britain THE THATCHER FAMILY PUT ON THE SPOT The son's business interests are not in his mother's

~·.

2.4 · CONCLUSION I have drawn a distinction in this chapter between morphosyntactic, semantic-pragmatic, and a miscellaneous set of parameters as the basis on which to present the data to be discussed and explained. There are, in point of fact, a number of interesting correlations to be observed amongst the various types of anaphora which might, a priori, be distinguished (see the list given on pp. 26-27 ). For example, the morpho-syntactically defined ~anaphoric relations are all non-lexical in character, while the semanticallydefined ones are preponderantly lexical. Furthermore, the nominal/non-nominal distinction is relevant to both morphosyntactic and semantic-pragmatic anaphora, as it is to the miscellaneous types illustrated in 2.3. From the data so far presented, the referential/non-referential distinction seems only to be applicable to the morpho-syntactically defined types of anaphora, since the semantic-pragmatic types (at least, those we have seen so far), are realised by lexical 30

Types of Anaphora in English and French anaphors, which are potentially referential expressions (note that so-called 'bound' anaphora, a semantically defined relation in which the anaphor is of necessity non-referential, can only be realised non-lexically - but, see Wilson, 1984 for a different view). Finally, 'strict' anaphora may only be realised by non-lexical anaphors chosen from amongst those presented in 2.1 (in addition to other types not so far presented); while 'discourse' anaphora can be established by lexical and (certain types of) non-lexical anaphors alike. The overriding conclusion of this preliminary investigation is that anaphora, apart from certain specified types, is not an essentially textual relation between two expressions occurring in the co-text, one performing the antecedent function, and the other, the anaphoric. The basic function of anaphora is a discourse one: namely, that of referring to a discourse referent already present within the speaker's discourse model, or of actually creating one, via an inference on the addressee's part, on the basis of the discourse context. The role of the 'antecedent' in this is either to serve as the expression which first introduces the discourse referent into the discourse model, or to serve as the 'trigger' for the inference of a phonetically or morphologically related antecedent, to whose discourse referent the anaphor subsequently refers. It is in fact the anaphor itself which is instrumental in this, the 'antecedent trigger' merely serving to sanction the choice of a likely candidate antecedent. Lexically-based anaphors play a similar role in determining, a posteriori, one way of interpreting an otherwise vague or ambiguous antecedent (e.g. examples (26)a, where the anaphor chosen is the experience rather than (say) the fact or the event). In 2.1 (as well as 2.3), it became clear that the form as well as grammatical function, together with the nature of the grammatical context, of the non-lexical anaphor determine the grammatical nature and function of any potential antecedent. Because of the importance of the grammatical context in which the non-lexical anaphor occurs (a context which determines the grammatical function it is performing in its clause), there is a degree of flexibility in the syntactic forms a potential antecedent may take: one(s)~ ¢ and en may have N, Nor N antecedents (to borrow the notation used in X-bar theory - cf. Jackendoff, 1977); ¢and do may have V, V or V ones; and it~ this~ that and cela~ ~a~ le~ y and en may have VP, S or N antecedents. In the case of phrasal anaphors (which category obviously also includes lexical anaphors), it is not always easy or even possible to delimit the antecedent surfacesyntactically. The 'antecedent' is thus quite clearly a semantic rather than syntactic construct, which is made available only by the wider discourse context (which includes the anaphor itself), and marks the existence within the discourse 31

Types of Anaphora in EngZish and Frenah model of a corresponding discourse referent. But this is to anticipate a later discussion (cf. in particular 5.2.1). The only exceptions to this generalisation are those anaphoric relations which can be described as 'strict anaphora' (namely, that realised by relative and reflexive pronouns, by 'bound' non-reflexive pronouns, by null subjects of complement clauses controlled by an NP in a 'higher' clause, and (in English) by pronouns in 'tag' clauses). As Wasow (1979b) points out, such types of anaphoric relation share certain properties which set them apart from all other types. 10 We are now in a position to examine in more depth the nature and functions of the last-mentioned sub-type: namely, 'strict' nominal anaphora in English and French, which is the subject of the next chapter.

NOTES 1. Two noteworthy exceptions to this trend, to my knowledge, are (as far as English is concerned), Crymes (1968) and Webber (1979). 2. I place the term pro-form in quotes in the text since I am evidently not subscribing to the assumption made by users of this term that the expressions it refers to 'stand instead of' a fuller expression which is similar to its 'antecedent'. 3. One(s) is of course a countable pronoun, and is thus restricted to acting as anaphor to 'antecedents' whose head noun or N is also countable. Webber (1979, pp. 1-3, Ch.3) points out that one(s) can be used when the textual antecedent-trigger is not countable, so long as the context allows a re-interpretation of it as a discrete type or category of the uncountable substance which it denotes. An example would be (i): (i) John doesn't usually like red wine, but he certainly seems to be enjoying this Italian .2!!!. • Here, the use of a countable 'type' pronoun as head of a demonstrative NP with a restrictive modifier triggers the discourse referent 'this Italian brand of (red) wine'. Note also the attested example (iil, where the antecedent-trigger is clearly used in a generic, non-discrete sense: (ii) '...

Russian painting,

(BBC2 I 1976).

like this .2!!!. by X, was ••• '

4. Notice that the 'antecedent' of them in (l)d is not industries, but the complex description derived from the antecedent clause, inallstries that were doing well (cf. Webber, 1979, Ch. 3, as well as example (27)a in the text- p. 21 above). 5. Although the 'antecedent' in (5) is indeed preceded by the preposition ~' it is clear that the string de sa nouvelle voiture is not a constituent in this sentence, i.e. a prepositional phrase. There are indeed strings preceded by de which do correspond to constituents, yet which do not allow !!! as a potential anaphor: (i) Jean-Pierre a defendu a ses enfants de lire des bandes dessinees mais Yves [1' ] a permis aux siens. 1i~

'Jean-Pierre forbade his children to read comic strips, but Ives allowed his to do so' • 6. Cf. Ross (1970)

32

for the introduction of this term.

Types of Anaphora in English and French 7. Note that anaphors constructed on the basis of synonYmy between their head noun and the head of their 'antecedents' may be interpreted as coreferential with the latter, without anaphora holding between the two expressions; in the case of hyperonymic anaphors, on the other hand, such an interpretation is rare or impossible. 8. Lyons (personal communication) points out that he now envisages an ontology which involves two ·dimensions of variation rather than one (as was the case in his original 1977 conception). Thus, the two physical orderlevels of entities in the original formulation would have both a physical dimension (the physical objects or substances corresponding to the original 'first order' entities, and the physical events and situations corresponding to the original 'second-order' ones) and a non-physical or intensional dimension(an individual concept corresponding to a 'first-order' entity, and a proposition correlating with a 'second-order' one). This does not affect the status of the five. referents mentioned in the text, which 1 have claimed are all, apart perhaps from that in (26)d, 'second-order' (extensional) entities. 9. Indeed, when I originally read the article from which (30)a, for example, is taken, I immediately took the senator to refer to some other individual than Mr Hart, but quickly revised this interpretation on finding that there was no other named or inferrable individual within the discourse context which it might coherently describe. It is important to remember, however, that anaphors often indirectly inform the addressee of some property of their referent, of which they may previously have been unaware. 10. Wasow (op.cit. p.26 ff.) argues that the types of 'strict' anaphora just mentioned all involve an obligatorily anaphoric interpretation between the anaphor and a co-occurring antecedent. Thus the relation involved is in all these instances a grammatically-determined one, the anaphors concerned being unable to refer deictically, that is, non-anaphorically. Wasow further argues that, to capture this property, their formation and interpretation should be handled by a copying transformation, unlike those of other anaphors, which must be base-generated. Presumably, what is to be copied here is the relevant set of feature values of the antecedent NP (viz. person, number and gender).

33

Chapter Three 'STRICT' NOMINAL ANAPHORA

3.0

INTRODUCTION

In the introduction to Chapter 2 (pp. 7-8), I noted that one way to classify anaphoric relations is in terms of the nominal/ non-nominal parameter. This parameter, indeed, crossclassifies with the morpho-syntactic, semantic-pragmatic and miscellaneous parameters which I adopted in Chapter 2; furthermore, it is apparent that there are, in both English and French, two distinct sets of non-lexical anaphors whose use is sensitive to this distinction 1 : in English, he, she, they and their case-marked variants, their reflexive and possessive counterparts, the relative and interrogative pronouns who, whose, whePe, and one; and in French, il, elle, eux, elles, their accusative and dative clitic counterparts le, la, les, lui, leuP, their possessive and reflexive variants, the relative pronouns qui, dont, lequel ... , auquel ... ,and duquel .. , and the demonstratives celui 3 celle, ceux3 celles 3 form a set whose 'antecedent' can only be a nominal expression (i.e. either a noun or an NP); while, on the other hand, English S0 3 do S0 3 do it 3 do this/that, do and the relative pronouns which and what; and French 'neuter] le 3 faiPe 3 le faiPe, ce faiPe 3 faiPe cela/qa 3 and the relative pronouns quoi, ce qui 3 ce que 3 ce dont, ce ~ quoi, form a contrasting set whose members are restricted to non-nominal (i.e. neither nouns, nor NPs), or predicative, 'antecedents'. From the examples and discussion in Chapter 2, it seems that it is not the formal status of 'antecedents' or anaphors which determine whether an anaphoric relation may be established; rather, it is the grammatical (and hence, semantic) function of both 'antecedent' and anaphor in terms of which such a relation may be set up. On the one hand, we find examples such as 2(19)a and b, in which the 'antecedent' is in purely formal terms a noun phrase,yet functions as a predicate; and the pronoun used to establish an anaphoric relation with it is, accordingly, a predicate anaphor (namely neuter le). 34

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora While on the other, we find examples (albeit somewhat extreme) such as 2(36)a,b and 2(37)a,b in which the antecedent-trigger is both formally a noun phrase and functionally a nominal or argument expression, and yet where the use of a non-nominal or predicate anaphor, in ostensibly establishing an anaphoric relation with it, triggers a predicative 'antecedent' which is both phonologically and morphologically related to the ostensible nominal one (i.e. the antecedent-trigger). This is made possible in these cases because the antecedent-trigger is a nominalized form of the corresponding verb. Hence, on the one hand, the particular functional role of the 'antecedent'is sufficient to enable members of one or the other set of non-lexical anaphors to contract an anaphoric relation with it; but, on the other, the use of members of one or other set of anaphors, performing the grammatico-semantic function corresponding to their functional type, may, under certain circumstances, 'ignore' the functional role of their 'antecedent' and instead trigger a morphologically related one which does correspond to their functional type as well as role. Recall that I claimed (Chapter 2, p.l8) that one of the most important factors conditioning the setting up of a non-lexicallybased anaphoric relation was the grammatical context of the anaphor in question, and in particular, its grammatical role within the anaphoric segment. This means, then, that in the case of those non-lexical anaphors which may occur in either of the two sets just defined (i.e. those listed in note 1), it is precisely the grammatical role being performed by such anaphors (as determined, primarily, by the verb of their clause) which signals which of the two types of anaphoric function they are assuming. A further indication of the type which is operating in some instance is provided by the 'selection restriction' imposed by the verb (for example) upon the non-lexical anaphor with which it is in construction. This kind of indication is particularly important in a language such as English, which does not possess the category of grammatical gender 2 . Furthermore, the examples of lexically-based anaphora presented in 2.2 may likewise be divided into 'nominal' and 'non-nominal' types, in the sense in which I am using these terms. That is, although in every case the lexical anaphors illustrated consisted formally of noun phrases, as did the majority of their 'antecedents' (where it was possible to delimit an antecedent segment), we saw that the nature of the anaphoric relation concerned was in fact determined by the nature of the anaphor's discourse referent. In 2(26)a and d, for example, although the 'antecedent' in each case is formally a noun phrase, their discourse referents are 'second-order extensional' and 'second-order intensional' entities, respectively, in Lyons's ontology (see note 8, Chapter 2). Often, in

35

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora

such instances of 'non-nominal' lexical anaphora, either or both the 'antecedent' and the anaphor will, as in 2(26)a, contain a de-verbal noun head, a fact which strongly indicates a 'non-nominal' interpretation of such relations. This is analogous to the situation obtaining in the case of those nonlexical anaphoric relations in which the 'antecedent', though a noun phrase, allows the inference of a morphologically related predicative expression to be triggered by a nonnominal anaphor (see examples 2(36)a, b and 2(37)a, b, discussed above on p. 29) • Using the term 'nominal', then, in its more semantic sense as 'determining a first-order referent' (cf. Lyons, 1977), where the 'antecedent' (if there is one) corresponds more or less closely to an argument in semantic structure, I shall devote the remainder of this chapter to anaphora of this type 3 • The following chapter will, accordingly, be concerned with non-nominal (i.e. predicate and propositional) anaphora. I shall begin by looking at English 'strict' nominal anaphora (section 3.1), and will then turn to French (section 3.2). 3.1

ENGLISH NOMINAL ANAPHORA: NATURE AND FUNCTIONS

The examples and discussion in Chapter 2 showed that a formalsyntactic approach to anaphora is not, in itself, revealing of the essential properties of the phenomena illustrated. On the other hand, they pointed overwhelmingly towards a functional and semantic explanation. This is, indeed, the approach which I shall adopt throughout this book. I shall devote the remainder of this chapter to a discussion of those types of nominal anaphora which would appear at first sight to lend themselves most readily to a formal-syntactic analysis, namely what I am calling 'strict' nominal anaphora. Under this heading, I will examine three sub-types: reflexive pronouns and other types of so-called 'bound' ;anaphora, complement 'subject' control, and relative· clauses. It will be seen that all three sub-types share certain important properties, and that they are affected by and contribute to a variety of discourse-level processes and properties. Instances of referential or 'discourse' nominal anaphora will be examined in Chapter 5. Strict nominal anaphora involves first and foremost the establishment of a grammatical structure; correlatively, the sub-types of anaphora it embraces do not automatically entail the prior establishment of a discourse referent. The sub-types in question are complement 'subject' control, restrictive relative clauses, reflexive clauses, clauses containing simple thirdperson pronouns interpreted as variables bound by their con36

'Strict'

Nomina~

Anaphora

troller NP, and reduced 'tag' clauses. In all these types, the anaphor is a pronoun (ellipsed, in the case of complement 'subject'control) which cannot be interpreted deictically, and whose 'antecedent' (i.e. its controller) must co-occur with it in a strictly constrained context. Giv6n (1979a)(especially Chapters 5 and 6) provides considerable cross-linguistic evidence for the view that syntactic relations and processes develop in languages out of essentially pragmatic, discourse relations in which there is a tendency towards a transparent, one-to-one relationship between forms and meanings: for example, the subject relation is claimed to develop out of the topic function, and relative clauses out of paratactic, pragmatically connected sentences in juxtaposition with one another. The 'syntacticization' of such discourse relations renders language processing more automatic and so increases its efficiency, but does so at the cost of destroying the transparent relationship hitherto obtaining between forms and meanings; as a consequence, morphology develops as an additional coding device. The relationship between grammatical, sentence-internal and discourse, intrasentential relations and processes is thus predicted to be fluid, a difference in degree rather than in kind - contrary to the Generativist assertion that there is a categorical distinction between competence and performance phenomena, with its corollary, the thesis of the autonomy of syntax with respect to semantics, pragmatics and phonology (cf. also e.g., Hopper & Thompson, 1980, Werth, 1984). Giv6n, indeed, demonstrates the specific discourse functions of a large number of grammatical, sentence-internal phenomena (e.g. passive, relative clauses, clefted structures, negatives, 'left-dislocation') in an impressively wide variety of languages, showing the precise role each plays in the creation of discourse. The correct relationship between syntax /semantics and discourse is thus the one in which the former are subsumed under and wholly motivated by the latter, rather than vice versa. This view thus runs directly counter to the view presented, for example, in Reinhart (1983: Chapters 4 and 10) that structurally-defined 'primacy' notions such as that of "head of c-command domain" are major determinants of the syntactic realisation of discourse functions such as topic and theme, even though "this (i.e. Reinhart's "domain condition" (2) 4 ) is only the sentence-level parameter and pragmatic parameters may outweigh it" (1983: 200). In the light of this relationship, then, let us examine some properties of English strict nominal anaphora, beginning with reflexives. 37

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora 3.1.1 Reflexive elauses Reflexive pronouns are 'anaphors', in Chomsky's (1981) Government-Binding (GB) framework: that is, like the reciprocal each other and NP- and Wh- trace, reflexives are subject to condition (A) of the Binding Theory given below in note 4, the most restrictive of the three binding conditions: namely, that all such nominal expressions must be assigned an explicit antecedent (or 'controller', as I am viewing 'antecedents' in the context of 'strict' anaphora) from within their governing category. A governing category is the minimal S or NP containing the 'anaphor' and a potential governor for the 'anaphor' (i.e. one of the lexical categories V, N, A,or P, or INFL)). The 'maximal projections' S, NP, VP, PP and AP are absolute barriers to government; that is, a constituent contained within one of these maximal category projections cannot be governed by a potential c-commanding governor outside it. (This principle is weakened in Chapter 5, 1981, where it is claimed that an external governor may govern the head of a maximal projection: cf. principle 5.3(1), p.300). 'Anaphors', in Chomsky's (1981) sense, 5 are "NPs that have no capacity for 'inherent reference'" (1981: 188). However, this definition is clearly too broad, since Chomsky would not want to include such non-referential expressions as 'pleonastic' it and there~ for example, in the category of 'anaphors', which would necessarily follow in the absence of suitable qualification. 'Anaphors' are indeed expressions which possess this property, but it is a property which follows from a still more general (and more crucial) one: namely, the requirement which all such expressions signal, that their full interpretation be derived via a syntagmatic linking with a co-occurring controller within a grammatically-defined context. They are thus 'referentiallydependent' expressions par excellence~ in Evans's (1980) terminology. Chomsky devotes relatively little space in the work in question to a discussion of the English reflexive pronoun; instead, he takes the reciprocal each other as the central representative of the sub-category of 'anaphors'. One reason for this ~ay be that reflexives are much less obviously in complementary distribution with ordinary pronouns than is the case with each other (see also Brame, 1983: 160-165 for examples and discussion of the anaphoric differences between English reflexive and reciprocal pronouns); hence, each other represents more sharply than the reflexive the Binding Theory's prediction that 'pronominals' (i.e. ordinary pronouns and the empty NP PRO) will be interpreted as 'disjoint' in reference in relation to a potential 'antecedent' (controller) within a grammatical context in which 'anaphors' must be bound to that 'antecedent', in order to avoid ungrammaticality. A standard example of this might be (1): 38

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora (1) [John told {*him

s

himself

}

[that

S

he {*himself}

must be dreaming]]

(The italics indicate the intended binding relation between the expressions concerned). The governing category of the first occurrence of him/ himself in (1) is the matrix clause, since the pronoun position is governed by told. Thus, according to binding conditions (A) and (B) (see note 4), the pronoun him must be 'free' in this context, that is, disjoint in reference from

John: what this tells us about the potential reference value of him is that it must be 'some definite, single male individ-

ual other than John'; the selection of the reflexive in this position, on the other hand, requires that it be bound within the matrix clause (its governing category), the c-commanding NP John being the only 'antecedent' available. The converse relationship holds between either of the two pronouns in the embedded clause and the matrix subject John: as subject of the embedded, tensed clause, the pronoun cannot be governed by the matrix verb told, since its containing constituent is S, an absolute barrier to government from without. The pronoun subject of the S dominated by S is instead governed by the node INFL, a node directly dominating Tense and AGR, the agreement features, which, once this node has been coindexed with the Subject node and nominative case assigned to the latter, will eventually appear on the finite verb of the clause. The governing category for the subject pronouns in the embedded clause is thus the S immediately dominated by S. Himself, as an 'anaphor', must be bound within this grammatical context, a requirement which it is impossible to fulfil, there being no other (c-commanding) NP in this domain. He, on the other hand, being a 'pronominal', may take John as its !antecedent', since John does not occur within its governing category, where the pronoun is 'free', as required by condition (B); indeed, being 'free' in its governing category, the pronoun is not required to take John as its 'antecedent' at all, and may (as the occurrence of him in ·the matrix S must) be anaphoric to an NP occurring in previous discourse, or refer deictically to some single male individual salient in the context-of-utterance. In fact, it is not clear that a sentence grammar need say anything at all about how the actual reference of a 'pronominal' (as opposed to that of an 'anaphor') is to be assigned, other than to predict that members of this category of NPs will be 'disjoint' in reference with respect to any NP occurring within their governing category in any particular instance. 'Disjointness of reference' is thus the inverse of 'binding', and, like the latter, is to be specified by the sentence grammar. The interpretation of 'anaphors', on the other hand, can (at least in principle) be fully specified by 39

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora the sentence grammar on the basis of condition (A) of the Binding Theory. However, as mentioned earlier, it is not the case that reflexives are in a relationship of straightforward complementary distrib,ution with ordinary pronouns in English (Chomsky, in fact, concedes this later on in the work in question, on p.289f). One must, of course, set aside the emphatic use of reflexive pronouns, which as Reinhart (1983:131) notes is determined pragmatically rather than syntactico-semantically, as in the following attested example from The Observer of 24.6.84, p.l4:

" ... In the brief moments when Ms Parkin was not clutching Quentin Crispi 3 I managed to talk to him about 3 weU 3 himself."·

1 Here, the reflexive is rhematic and receives the sentence stress. Moreover, it is governed by a preposition, from which it is, into the bargain, separated by the parenthetical interjection well. Von Bremen (1984: 221) claims, from the evidence provided by data from a variety of Indo-European languages (Slavic and Romance, in particular) that "PPs strongly, more strongly than verbs, induce a complement/argument position [i.e. interpretation] for reflexives". (This is also the case in (2)a, b below). The greater degree of syntactic and semantic independence which this entails means that this instance of the 'emphatic' reflexive refers directly, like a non-reflexive pronoun, to its associated discourse referent, its 'antecedent' occurring in the preceding 'thematic' adverbial clause. One must also set aside those instances where there is a possible choice available to the speaker between an (unstressed) reflexive and an ordinary pronoun, the outcome of the choice again having pragmatic import. The latter possibility can be illustrated by a pair of examples presented in Cantrall (1974: 157):

(2) a b

A truck A truck

shines its lights far ahead of it shines its lights far ahead of itself

Cantrall explains the difference between the two types of pronoun as a function of the notion 'viewpoint', clearly a pragmatic notion. The reflexive is claimed to be selected when the action or state of affairs described is seen from the viewpoint of the referent of some NP in its containing clause (most often, the subject NP), while the ordinary pronoun signals the fact that the speaker is vouching for the correctness of the action or state of affairs described. This account predicts that, as in (2)b for example, the subject NP a truck which 'binds' the reflexive, in Chomsky's (1981) terms, should be interpretable as an animate, sentient being capable of having a viewpoint; and this is indeed the case here, where the active predicate shine x's lights ahead of (which I would argue is the (complex) governor of the pronoun in each version) reinforces such an interpretation. This animacy condition on the interpretation of the antecedents of reflexives has been widely noted 40

'Strict ' Nominal Anaphora (cf. for example, Jackendoff's (1972: 174) constraint on 'backwards anaphora' involving reflexive pronouns, to the effect that the antecedent in such instances must be interpretable as animate). It is no doubt the agentive character of the 'antecedent' in (2)b which is more crucial for the use of the reflexive pronoun, its animate character being inferrable from this. Chomsky's (1981) Binding Condition (A), to which reflexives are claimed to be subject, may perhaps to seen as a reflex of the more intimate subjective-semantic connexion between reflexive pronouns and their controllers, in comparison to that obtaining in the case of ordinary, non-'bound' pronouns in relation to their 'antecedents' (cf. also Von Bremen's 1984 distinction between 'reflexivity/reciprocity' and 'anaphoricity'.) Note, incidentally, that the binding relation between a truck and it in (2)a should be impossible, according to Binding Condition (B), since the complex verb shines x's lights ahead of governs the pronoun position and so the containing S is its governing category. (Chomsky, of course (cf. 1981: 290-l),might argue that the PP ahead of it is the governing category here, the complex preposition ahead of being the governor; and that hence the pronoun is 'free' in its governing category, as required. However, this would work the other way in the case of (2)b, where the structure is identical). Jackendoff (1972: 148ff.) suggests a further condition regulating the assignment of 'antecedents' to reflexives, a condition which underlines the essentially semantic nature of such connexions. This is the "Thematic Hierarchy 'Condition on Reflexives" (Jackendoff's(4.175)) which states that "A reflexive may not be higher on the Thematic Hierarchy than its antecedent". Jackendoff adopts Gruber's (1976)(a revision of his earlier work, to which Jackendoff in fact referred) version of functional case relations borne by argument expressions in relation to their verb, where ~heme is the function associated with an NP which represents the entity which moves from Source to Goal in a change-of-location predication, or whose location is specified. Jackendoff's Thematic Hierarchy is given below as (3): (3)

(J's (4.174))

The Thematic Hierarchy

1. Agent

2. Location, Source, Goal 3. Theme The Condition is intended to rule out 'antecedent'-reflexive pairings such as that in (4), where John bears the Theme relation and himself the Agent, with the result that the reflexive is higher on the TH than its putative antecedent: (4)

*John was deceived by himself 41

'Strict 1

Nominal~

Anaphora

Note that this example cannot be marked as ungrammatical (or more correctly, asemantic) as a decontextualized, system sentence (to use Lyons's 1977 term): for its status can only be assessed relative to some discourse context, a context which must include stress and intonation markings. As a text sentence (cf. Lyons's 1977 term), it would appear to violate the discourse convention which states that 'given' material should be assigned thematic status in the discourse (in the Prague School sense of 'thematic', rather than Gruber's and Jackendoff's) and 'new' material, rhematic. Himself in (4), being a third person pronoun, that is, an expression which is inherently thematic, is used in a highly rhematic position (indeed, the Focus position in the passive construction) (cf. also Hinds, 1975). Thus the 'antecedent'-reflexive relation shown in (4) not only violates a semantic constraint (Jackendoff's Thematic Hierarchy Condition), but contravenes also a basic principle concerning the construction of discourse. Given that discourse considerations may override purely sentence-level constraints (a fact conceded both by Chomsky, 1981 and by Reinhart, 1983 see note 4), (4) becomes perfectly acceptable in contexts where the reduced pitch and stress levels characteristic of pronouns are uncalled for. In answer to (4)a, (4) would be uttered such that himself would be 'accented', in Werth's (1984: 95ff.) system, while the same pronoun would be given a contrastive accent, again under Werth's (1984) system, when (4) (prefixed by No!) is uttered in answer to (4)b: (4)a b

Who was John deceived by, do you know? It must have been Bill who deceived John.

Jackendoff's Thematic Hierarchy Condition on the binding of reflexives is but one manifestation of the relation of syntactic -semantic dependency which such expressions exhibit in relation to their controllers. At the structural level, this dependency is reflected in the fact that reflexive pronouns are normally c-commanded by their antecedents (cf. Reinhart, 1983: 131-133, who claims that this is a requirement which holds of all anaphoric relations where the antecedent is a quantified (non-specific, non-generic) NP- i.e. so-called 'bound anaphora'). There are some well-known exceptions to this generalization, 5 however, notably instances in which reflexives occur in so-called 'picture' noun phrases, as in (5), taken from Jackendoff (1972: 164) (cf. also Cantrall, 1974: Chs. 7 and 8): (5)

[The[description of himself]_[~hat[John gave the police]]] was a pack of lies NS NP

Here, John does not c-command himself~ since the first branching node dominating the former does not also dominate the latter (the same is true of the node S, which directly dominates the S dominating John, and is of the same category type - cf. the 42

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora extended definition of c-command given in Reinhart. 1983:41 as well as in note 4, Chapter 5, below). Nevertheless, the binding relation between John and himself can hold. Indeed, on the semantic level, it may be said that this dependency goes even further than this, for it is arguable that reflexive pronouns do not correspond semantically to arguments at all, contrary to what is assumed in the standard predicate logic formula Px,x, where P is a predicate and x is a variable (cf. also, Brame, 1983). For the English reflexive pronoun, though nominal in form (namely [Det N]NP' where the Det node dominates a bound possessive pronoun ana the N is the noun self, according to Helke (1973)), is predicative in function, since it may be analysed as containing a logical operator, namely SELF. Though the pronoun, being nominal in form, may indeed occur in NP-argument positions (as object of a verb or preposition, though never as subject), its effect is to turn a two-place predicate such as a transitive verb or noun (of the type exemplified by story, picture, description, etc.) into a one-place predicate (cf. also Bach and Partee, 1980: 8-9). That is, it serves to detransitivize the predicates to which it is attached, in a similar way to the effect of the passive (indeed, in French, one common way of expressing a 'passive' meaning is precisely to use the reflexive form of the verb concerned- cf. 3.2.1 below). We might then say that the effect of creating a complex one-place predicate caused by the operator SELF ((e.g. ((SELF) TELL-ABOUT)) is to place a semantic condition on the necessary argument required for this function to be applied to; and that, as a direct consequence, the argument chosen obligatorily binds the (possessive) pronoun contained in the determiner of the reflexive (following Helke's 1973 analysis; cf. also Wasow, 1979: 25-27). This kind of analysis is developed by Bosch (1983) and Brame (1983), among others. Thus, we find the 'antecedent'-reflexive binding in (6)a,b: (6)a but:b

John told Bill about himself John asked Bill about himself

It would appear that the binding relations indicated in these examples represent the unmarked, preferred interpretations, and that this is due to the semantic structure of the predicates concerned. Interpretations where himself is anaphoric to Bill in (6)a, and to John in (6)b, are possible, but marked; as such, they can only be obtained by means of contrastive stress on the pronoun in each case. These interpretations would thus be directly obtained by (pragmatic) contrast with the semantic structure induced by the verb of each clause, and the reflexives in each case would be instances of the emphatic reflexive, which we saw (on p.40) is to be distinguished from true reflexives (in the sense that it has both argument and referential status). 43

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora As suggested in Bach & Partee (1980:7), the bound variable contained in the determiner portion of the reflexive would be bound not directly by its controller NP, but indirectly via lambda-abstraction. The obligatory agreement in person, number and gender exhibited by the determiner segment is a morphological reflex of this semantic binding relation. Strong support for Helke's (1973) analysis of English reflexives, which I am adopting here (cf. p. 43 above), comes from Joseph (1979) who argues that the determiner segment and head noun -self in the English reflexive undergo quite different agreement processes: the bound determiner is controlled by the syntactic feature properties of its controller, whereas the head noun -self (which varies only in number) agrees in terms of the relevant property of the referent of that controller. Joseph's crucial example (his (9),p.520) concerns a certain style of English often used by nurses when speaking to patients (or by parents or teachers addressing young children), where the first-person plural pronoun we is used in place of the more usual second-person singular you (where the addressee is a single individual): (7)

We seem a bit displeased with

1

ourself 3 don't we? *ourselves *yourself "'yourse lvel *myself *my selves

Such a distinction is not apparent in the more normal uses of reflexives, where the syntactic and referential number values of the antecedent expression tend to correspond. All the properties of the English reflexive, then, converge in signalling the syntactic, semantic and referential dependency which is the central characteristic of this anaphor: as such, the binding relationship into which these forms enter is a wholly grammatical one, in opposition to that holding between emphatic reflexives and their 'antecedents', which is defined pragmatically. As Bach & Partee (1980:7) and other linguists have noted, the relationship between 'antecedents' and the reflexives they bind is not one of 'coreference' (as it may be in the case of ordinary pronouns as well as definite NP anaphors), since reflexive pronouns are not fully-referring expressions - indeed, they are not really arguments, semantically, as I have claimed, but rather 'predicate modifiers', in Brame's 1983 terms. The same is true of obligatorily bound possessive pronouns in idiomatic or lexicalized phrases such as lose one's way 3 blow one's nose (whose similarity to reflexives motivated Helke's (1973) "Det+N" analysis of the latter expressions): here, the possessive pronoun is clearly 44

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora part of the predicate function LOSE SELF'S WAY, BLOW SELF'S NOSE, and may in no sense be said to correspond to an argument.

As a consequence, obligatory morpho-syntactic agreement must obtain between the argument to which this function is applied and the possessive pronoun which it binds (cf. by analogy with

(7),Shouldn't we blow{ our} nose, then?). {*your}

I shall not examine the reciprocal pronoun each other, the other main member of the category of 'anaphors', in Chomsky's (1981) system. For a very detailed critique of Chomsky's account of this 'anaphor', including a reanalysis in terms of the purely semantic properties it possesses, see Werth (1984:Ch.8.6, pp.l87-210). Werth argues that the anaphoric behaviour of the reciprocal is entirely predictable from the individual semantic properties of the two elements which comprise it, in combination, together with a general principle of discourse coherence. Each is a distributive anaphor, which quantifies each member of the antecedent set in turn, while other is a 'negative' anaphor whose antecedent is the complementary of the sub-set of members not being separately focused upon by each (a process which is applied in rotation until the entire set is exhausted). The result is a reciprocal interpretation. Werth's analysis of each other is along the same lines as my picture of the English reflexive, and links up in an interesting way with the phenomenon of complement 'subject' control, the topic of the next sub-section. 3.1.2 Complement 'subject' control The empty category PRO in Chomsky's GB system occurs essentially as subject of an infinitive (i.e. a non-tensed S), an adverbial participial phrase or a gerundive NP - that is, it acts as subject of embedded, dependent structures. As such, when controlled by an NP which is of necessity outside the clause or NP in which PRO occurs (in Chomsky's GB system), it may be said that the controlling clause and the controlled clause contract a highly cohesive grammatical relation with one another. In reality, however, that relation is even more highly cohesive than Chomsky's essentially structural analysis suggests, since it would seem that, in the case of what is known as 'obligatory control' at least, the infinitival or participial phrase is directly selected by the superordinate predicate, of which it forms the complement; the clausal status of the controlled segment is in fact entirely due, in Chomsky's analysis, to the need to postulate an abstract, nonrealised syntactic 'subject' NP, PRO, for such non-finite phrases in order for the Binding rules - which function to coindex syntactical!~ independent constituents, i.e. NPs - to operate correctly. 45

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora But if, in company with proponents of a Montague Grammar semantic analysis (cf. Bach, 1979, Dowty, 1985), of a lexicallocal (i.e. non-phrasal) approach (cf. Brame, 1983, Hudson, 1984), or of a discourse-functional characterisation (cf. Foley & Van Valin Jr., 1984), we view the phenomenon of 'control' of infinitives, gerunds or participles as an instance of lexical composition combined with function-argument interpretation, the motivation for analysing the controlled segment as a sentence or clause having an independent 'empty' subject vanishes. The independent justification for analysing segments subject to 'obligatory control' as S's on the syntactic level is in any case slight, even non-existent: Bach (1979) in fact analyses controlled infinitival segments as VPs, and indeed views configurations of superordinate verb, complement argument (where there is one) and infinitive as complex predicates structured according to their semantic type. So-called 'transitive' VPs headed by verbs like persuade are analysed semantically as complex predicates within which the predicate corresponding to the infinitival (or participial) verb is embedded, the whole function being applied to the superordinate verb's complement NP as its argument; while 'predicative' or 'intransitive' VPs headed by verbs like try or promise are treated semantically as predicates within which the complement NP (in the case of promise -type verbs) is embedded, and the whole complex predicate applied to the predicate corresponding to, its surface infinitival complement, as its argument. The two types of analysis are given in (8)a, b, respectively (Bach's (77), p. 527), in terms of Montague's intensional logic. (8)a b

persuade John to go [PERSUADE~ (GO~)] promise

John to go [

PROMISE

~

(

(

j*)

j * ) ] (GO~ )

This predicts, correctly, that in (9)a below the controller of the infinitive is John, while in (9)b, it is Mary: (9)a b

Mary persuaded John to go Mary promised John to go

The analysis is further confirmed by the distribution of passive forms corresponding to the two predications: (lO)a John was persuaded by Mary to go/persuaded to go by Mary b *John was promised by Mary go /*promised to go by Mary The analysis as a whole closely resembles the kind of treatment which I advocated in 3.1.1, in company with Bach & Partee (1980), Bosch (1983) and Brame (1983), as most appropriate for English reflexive pronouns (or 'reflexive determiners', as Brame, 1983:157 revealingly calls them): namely, that these are 'predicate modifiers' which operate upon their 46

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora governing predicate to create a semantically complex predicate, which in turn is applied as a function to the appropriate co-occurring argument expression, with the latter's person and number feature values being transferred to the determiner component of the reflexive pronoun as a signal of this semantic relation. Brame (1983), (though not adopting a Montague Grammar analysis, and denying the existence of phrasal categories on the syntactic level), specifically subsumes all instances of 'bound anaphora' (including subject-verb agreement in this category) under the heading of 'local control' phenomena. What all these phenomena have in common, indeed, is that they are instances of predication of one sort or another (cf. Williams's 1980 approach to 'obligatory control' relations) or more accurately, function-argument interpretation - with 'control' of the functor (and, derivatively, of its component parts) by the argument expression being the automatic reflex of this. Yet Brame's own definition of local control does not capture the specific nature of this intensional operation: (11)

(Brame, 1983:156) Local Control (LC): Upon lexical composition, bind the control indices of two lexical items Ln and Lm just in case Ln lexically selects 1m as one of its arguments (equivalently,Ln governs Lm).

Rule Ql)simply states that the governing predicate's index ts bound to that of the 'strict' anaphor or of infinitival to (in the case of controlled infinitives) which it lexically selects (Brame argues (p.l56) that complement-taking lexemes should be specified in the lexicon as selecting only the 'headselectors' of the phrasal constituents (inadmissible in his theory) which may occur as their complements); it says nothing about the important semantic re-structuring which such lexical composition entails within the complex predicate thereby created, an effect which he in fact stresses at other points in the article. He observes not only the particular intensional senses of reflexive verbs (in relation to their nonreflexive counterparts, where these exist), and reflexive prepositions (e.g. (all) by oneself, beside oneself (with), ibid., p. 157), but also the effect which the choice of one type of bound anaphor rather than another has upon the semantic structure of the complex predicate - that is, its potential selection of the appropriate controller. Whereas the choice of a reflexive pronoun bound to a locative preposition governed by an activity verb has no effect on its relational type, that of a reciprocal pronoun does: (12)a (B's (49a))Sue and John threw the shoes behind each other b (B's (49b))*Sue and John threw the shoes behind themselves. 47

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora The predicate throw behind in (12)b is of the same relational type as persuade as analysed in (8)a, that is, where the NP object is the argument to which the complex intensional predicate is applied (an interpretation which in this instance would lead to incoherence). To obtain the interpretation whereby it is the referents of the subject expression whom the shoes were thrown behind, a referential (i.e. non-intensional) anaphor must be used, namely them (this pronoun would here be an instance of what Bosch, 1983 calls the anaphoric (as opposed to deictic) use of the referential pronoun - which itself is a type of use rather than a particular form per se). Alternatively, however, an intensional anaphor can be used, namely the reciprocal each other as in (12)a; but, as Brame (1983:163) points out, upon lexical composition the predicate throw behind changes from the relational type illustrated by persuade (cf. (8)a) to that exhibited by promise or try (as shown in (8)b). Thus the subject argument Sue and John can control the complex predicate 'threw-the-shoes-behind-eachother', and indirectly, the anaphor, via function-argument interpretation. The effect of the referential nature of arguments of governing verbs on their control properties (as well as vice versa) is also highlighted by Dowty (1985: 315f.). Dowty claims that 'Equi' verbs (i.e. those that were analysed in the classical Transformational approach as triggering 'equivalent NP deletion' of their complement's subject at an underlying level, under the control of a specified NP for which the verbs in question were sub-categorized) have as their presupposition that the referent of their controller is "a rational entity capable of volitional behaviour" (ibid., p.315). 'Raising' verbs, on the other hand (i.e. verbs which were classically analysed as allowing their complement's subject to occur as their own subject), impose no semantic 'selection restriction' upon the 'raised' NP (in Chomsky's GB system, such NPs are asssigned no theta role). Thus, 'dummy' or non-argumental NPs are just as acceptable as fully referring expressions in the role of 'raised' subject. These differences are illustrated in (13): (13) (a) There seemed to be a problem for the organisers (b) John seemed to be a problem for the organisers (c) *There tried to be a problem for the organisers (d) John tried to be a problem for the organisers

The semantic role of the subject of the 'raising' verb eeem in relation to the predication as a whole in (13)a,b is nil; it could be said, however, that sentences with 'raised' subjects such as (13)a and b involve a 'topicalization' of those subjects, in contrast with the pragmatically more neutral 'unraised' versions (viz. It seemed that there was a 48

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora problem for the organisers and It seemed that John was a problem for the organisers~ respectively). In the case of the potential subjects of the 'equi' verb try (as in (13)c,d),

however, these do play a role in the determination of their predicate; and indeed, the verb itself carries the presupposition that the referent of its subject is a rational entity capable of volitional behaviour, as we have seen, but also with the entailment that this entity exercises his or her volition with the intention of bringing about the state of affairs described by the complement. Where the subject is a non-argumental dummy expression, as in (13)c, there is a clash between the presupposition and entailment of members of this class of verbs used in the infinitival complement construction under consideration, on the one hand, and the semantically neutral dummy expression actually occurring in the subject position of such verbs, as exemplified in this example. Constructions of this type are thus excluded for bo~h semantic and pragmatic reasons, rather than purely syntactic ones (these factors have nonetheless become grammaticalized - or more accurately, lexicalized, as Dowty's whole argument attempts to establish - by the type of verb construction which try here exemplifies). That it is the 'control' relation rather than solely the verb in isolation which determines both the presupposition of rationality of the referent of the verb's subject and the entailment that this entity exercises his or her volition in intending to bring about the state of affairs described by the complement, is confirmed by observing the well-known meaning difference between those 'equi' verbs which can occur both with and without the presence of the complement's subject: (14)a a' b b'

Bill liked to tease his children Bill liked it that he teased his children Jane persuaded Harry to return her typewriter Jane persuaded Harry that he should return her typewriter c *The manager asked the sales-assistant to know the correct procedure c' The manager asked the sales-assistant if she knew the correct procedure.

((14)a, a' and b, b' are based on Dowty's (32)c, c' and (32)b, b' (1985: 313,312), respectively). In the a, b, and c examples, the referent of the controller-argument is understood as bei~g directly and intentionally involved in bringing about the state of affairs described in the complement, in such a way that the sense of the governing verb in these examples is different from that of its homonymous counterpart in the prime examples. In the latter, on the other had, no volition or necessary intentional49

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora ity with respect to the state of affairs described in the complement is ascribed to the counterpart of the controllerargument of the a, b, and c versions; indeed, the referents of these arguments are involved only to the extent that they assume a particular attitude towards the proposition expressed by the complement clause. (14)c is ill-formed precisely because the control structure in which the verb ask occurs triggers the familiar entailment that the referent of the controller-argument, the sales-assistant, exercises volition and intentionality in attempting to bring about the state of affairs described in the infinitival complement; yet that complement can only be understood as denoting a non-controllable (in the semantic sense of 'controllable'), non-dynamic state. Whence the semantic incoherence of this sentence. Dowty (1985: 323-325) discusses a further phenomenon which is of relevance here, in the shape of what he calls 'mixed raising-equi verbs'. Given that what primarily distinguishes 'equi' and 'raising' verbs are the particular types of presupposition and entailment which each type of predicate construction carries with respect to the controlling or 'raised' argument, it is perhaps not surprising to find verbs which may enter into either type of construction depending on the semantic-pragmatic nature of the 'pivot' argument (to use Foley & Van Valin Jr.'s 1984 term for both the 'equi' controller and the 'raised' subject NP), with a concomitant change in their semantic structure. The examples which Dowty gives to illustrate this in fact only involve 'raising' verbs, that is, verbs which may allow a non-argumental dummy in their subject position; however, when a ('raised') referring expression occurs in this position, the characteristic 'equi'-type entailment is triggered, not to the effect that the referent of the 'pivot', presupposed to be a rational entity capable of exercising volition, is directly involving in bringing about the state of affairs described in the complement, but (in the case at least of the psychological and physical perception verbs involved) that it is a concrete entity of which the experiencer of the situation as a whole has had some direct, sensory perception; referring expressions occurring in the subject positions of such verbs trigger the further entailment that "this perception causes one to realise that its complement i.s probably true of the subject's referent" (1985:324). The deviancy of 15(b), in contrast to the normality of (15)a, is a direct consequence of the presence of this type of presupposition and entailment: (15)a b 50

(D's (57)a) It suddenly strikes me that my wife has been dead for exactly two years (D's (57)b) ? My wife suddenly strikes me as having been dead for exactly two years

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora (The question mark preceding (lS)b is my addition). These examples, as well as those in (14), show how the semantic structure of verbs may be altered both by the type of complementation with which they enter into construction, and by the referential nature of their 'pivot' argument. As in the case of reflexive and reciprocal 'strict' anaphora, lexical composition induces a specific change in the derived predicate's semantic structure (and hence its control properties); and the potential effect on the derived predicate's semantic structure of the referential nature of the 'pivot' argument selected shows how utterance-level, pragmatic factors may co-determine the semantic as well as grammatical properties of the resulting predication. Utterance-level factors such as these are specifically invoked by Foley & Van Valin Jr. (1984) as an explanation for the control properties of complement-taking verbs, properties which they likewise view as being both lexical and semantic in nature. They frame their theory (which is restricted to twoargument complement-taking verbs involved in an 'obligatory control' relation) partly within pragmatics, in claiming of verbs of saying, for example, that it is the type of illocutionary act which a particular verb is being used to perform, at the utterance-level, which will determine its control properties in any given instance. Thus those verbs of saying which are used to perform 'directive' illocutionary acts, such as ask as used in (14)c, as well as tell, order, invite, implore, warn, etc. assign their 'Undergoer' argument as the controller of the infinitival complement; while those verbs of saying used to perform 'commissive' illocutionary acts, such as promise as in (9)b, as well as vow, swear, threaten, etc. select their 'Actor' argument as the controller. 'Undergoer' and 'Actor' are 'macroroles' (1984:30) subsuming the functional case roles Theme, Patient, Locative, Source, Recipient/Goal, and Agent, Instrument, Recipient/Goal, Experiencer and Source, respectively. The degree of overlap evident here in potential realisation of the two macroroles is recognised, and the point is made that the interpretation of an Undergoer-Source is significantly different from that of an Actor-Source, and likewise for the other overlapping microroles. The functional explanation for this clear division between the two categories of verbs of saying is that while directive illocutionary acts are essentially attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to bring about some state of affairs, commissive illocutionary acts are essentially commitments by the speaker to bring about some state of affairs. Hence, in the former case the onus is upon the addressee of the illocutionary act ~xpressed by the Undergoer argument) to bring about the state of affairs desired, whereas in the latter, it is upon the speaker (expressed by the Actor

51

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora argument). As Foley & Van Valin Jr. point out (ibid. p.308), directive illocutionary acts are a sub-class of causative acts, in which "the participant acted upon in the causing event is the actor of the caused event" (ibid. p.308). Thus verbs of the former category pattern with such causative verbs as force~ make~ encourage~ persuade in assigning the Causee argument (the Undergoer) as the controller of the infinitival complement (that is, in the terms in which we have been viewing the question, as the argument to which the complex predicate formed through composition by the governing verb and its infinitival complement is applied as a function). One important prediction of this theory is that those verbs which may be used to perform either type of illocutionary act (or non-illocutionary verbs which may be used either causatively or non-causatively) will assume the type of control properties corresponding to each usage (cf. also Dowty's 1985 argument, illustrated through the contrasts in (14) ·and the one in (15) above). Ask (as in (14)c) is a candidate, since this verb may be used to make a request for an action (cf. The manager asked the sales-assistant to find out the correct procedure) or as a pure interrogative (which is itself a kind of request, not so much for an action, but for the addressee to provide an 'intellectual' response, namely to assert the truth value of a proposition of which it is in doubt). Thus we have (a) the use exemplified above, (b) the WE-interrogative The manager asked the sales-assistant what to do, which I would argue is not understood as involving subject - i.e. Actor - control of the infinitive, but rather what Nishigauchi (1984) calls 'pragmatic control'. That is, I claim that the argument to which the predicate corresponding to the infinitive to do in examples of this type is applied is determined as a function of the utterance context: that is, this argument has the 'arbitrary reference' claimed by Chomsky (1981), as typically expressed by the generic pronoun one; however, this is but the semantic value of the argument in question, its full value being determined pragmatically through the parameters defined by the utterance context. Here, it is something like "one in situations of this kind", where it is in fact both the manager and the salesassistant, as individuals who are (potentially, at least) professionally involved in the kind of situation implied by the sentence in question, who are salient members of the set of human entities which the argument denotes. And (c), we have the 'pure interrogative' use of ask as exemplified in (14)c', where control is not involved, the Goal argument simply being requested to assert the truth value of a proposition. Other such examples might be the illocutionary verb plead with, as suggested by Foley & Van Valin Jr. (1984:310), and the 52

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora non-illocutionary verb make used as head of either a 'predicative' or a 'transitive' VP, in Bach's (1979) terms; these possibilities are illustrated in (16)a and b, respectively (though here the verb's complements are not verbal in nature): (16)a

Bill made the repertory company an excellent Othello ( . . . . (MAKE~ (

b

rc*)]

CAN

EXCELLENT OTHELLO~))

Bill made the repertory company very happy ( . . . . [MAKE~

CvERY

HAPPY~)]

Crc*))

It seems, then, that in all the cases of strict nominal anaphora we have seen so far, the anaphoric and referential properties of the anaphors concerned are best explained in terms of their semantics as well as in terms of their contribution to the construction of discourse. Crucial to the operation of the strict nominal anaphors so far examined is the predicate of the clause in which they occur, a predicate which they are instrumental in modifying, in order to create a new, complex one. It is the semantic as well as grammatical structure induced by the verb, in addition to the properties of the 'predicate modifier' selected (i.e. reflexive vs. reciprocal pronoun, or infinitival/participial VP vs. full clause introduced by a complementizer) which conditions both the anaphor's selection of an appropriate controller and the contextual interpretation of that controller. The process in each type of case is closely analogous to agreement, which, as will be seen in detail in Chapter 6, has both semantic and pragmatic properties. For each type of anaphor so far examined, there is a contrast between a grammatically-determined variant and a pragmatically-determined one: viz, 'true' reflexives vs. the emphatic reflexive; the reciprocal each other vs. the referential periphrastic form each ... the other (cf. Werth, 1984: 204); 'bound' possessive or noun-phrasal pronouns vs. 'free' or anaphoric/deictic pronouns; and semantically-controlled infinitives or participles vs. pragmatically-controlled ones. The final type of strict anaphora I shall discuss, namely restrictive relative clauses , also exhibits a contrast between a grammatically-determined variant and a pragmaticallydetermined one: namely, restrictive relatives, on the one hand, and non-restrictive relatives, on the other.

3.1.3 Relative clauses (Restrictive) relative pronouns are handled in Chomsky's (1981) GB framework as wh-NPs which are moved to COMP by the rule 'Move a', leaving in their original D-structure position a trace which the relative pronoun, conceived as an operator, binds. Though he does not discuss relatives in any depth in 53

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora the work in question, Chomsky assumes (1981: 229, fn.63(Ch.3)) an analysis in which the head of a (restrictive) relative clause is an NP (i.e. [NP· NPi S]), as in his illustrative example (iii) in note 63 1 of Chapter 3: (17) [Np.[NP· the man][g [i who][s ti saw [NP·1 himself]]]] 1 1 Nevertheless, there is evidence both that restrictive relative pronouns themselves contain the equivalent of a bound variable, and that their head is the N of their controller NP rather than that NP as a whole (cf. the analyses presented in Williams, 1980 and McCawley, 1981). First, the function of a restrictive relative clause is to narrow down the domain over which the variable bound by the operator seeping its controller ranges; that is, it acts as a 'syntactic adjective' (Benveniste, 1966:222), or as a '[complex] predicate' (Webber, 1979:2-29, Williams, 1980: 229), in further specifying the defining property which any entity capable of being referred to by the NP as a whole must necessarily possess. Since the anaphoric relation is contracted with the N of the controller NP, the relationship cannot be one of coreference; hence, quantified, non-referential NP controllers are just as acceptable as definite, referential ones. This is in direct contrast to non-restrictive relatives, where the relative clause is not part of the same minimal constituent as its head: indeed, such clauses, being parenthetical, express a proposition which is asserted (or questioned, etc.) independently of the one asserted (or questioned, etc.) in the 'antecedent' clause, and consequently, the relation holding between the relative pronoun and its 'antecedent' is the looser, more pragmatic one of coreference between referring expressions (NPs). In fact, there is more flexibility as regards the nature of the 'antecedent' of non-restrictive relative pronouns, which may be a predicate (e.g. a predicate nominal or adjective), or the entire preceding clause, in addition to a noun-headed NP. However, if non-predicative, it cannot be a non-referential quantified NP (cf. also Smith, 1964, McCawley, 1981). Examples follow. (18)a b

c

d

e f

g

54

The man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo was Swiss An Italian who speaks with his hands in his pockets is a contradiction in terms John is an engineer who really knows his job ?John is an engineer, who really knows his job John, who really knows his job, is an engineer #An Italian, who speaks with his hands in his pockets, is a contradiction in terms An elderly man, who wouldn't give his name, has asked to see the manager

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora h i

Tom was in good humour, which he always is Jane said that she was hard up, which is probably true

In (18)a, the relative clause is an adjectival, identifying description modifying the head N man. In (18)b, it is an essential part of the characterisation of the subject NP to which the predicate is applied, namely, "the class of individuals having the properties of being an Italian and speaking with their hands in their pockets". This is in direct contrast with (18)f, where incoherence is produced by the separate, parenthetical assertion of the relative clause, so that the predicate be a contradiction in terms has only a singular term (the subject NP) to be applied to. Notice also that, whereas in (18)b the restrictive relative clause tends to favour a generic interpretation of the NP as a whole (an interpretation which is confirmed by the combination of the latter with its predicate: see also 3.2.3 below), in (f) the non-restrictive relative, being semantically and pragmatically independent of its head NP (the matrix subject), tends naturally to suggest a specific indefinite (i.e. referential) interpretation of the latter. This results in a higher degree of incoherence still, since the matrix predicate can only be interpreted generically. The same preference exhibited by non-restrictive relatives for referential 'antecedents' is indicated by (18)d, where the proximity of the non-referential predicate nominal an engineer suggests that it is this NP which is its 'antecedent'; the anaphoric linking with the more natural candidate as 'antecedent', John, is more problematical due to its greater distance from it. A less highly referential relative pronoun, suited for anaphoric reference to predicates (cf. (18)h,i), would yield a perfectly acceptable sentence: (18)d~

John is an engineer, which (is a noble profession).

Observe also the following contrast, noted by Kempson (1975: examples (14) and (15)): (19)a John didn't buy a car which was convertible b ??John didn't buy a car, which was convertible (The status-assignment in (19)a and b is Kempson's). Kempson claims (1975: 115) that (19)b, unlike (19)a, is pragmatically odd, since non-restrictive relatives imply that their head NP refers to a specific discourse referent; yet the most natural interpretation of its 'antecedent', a car, occurring as it does within the scope of a negative, is such that it does not introduce a discourse referent. Thus, under the more salient interpretation of this discourse segment as a whole, the utterance is incoherent. Only under the contextually less preferred interpretation where a car is construed 55

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora as 'a certain, specific car' 8 could coherence be respected between the two clauses. No such oddity is apparent in the case of (19)a, where the restrictive relative clause is impervious to the referentiality of the NP containing its head: indeed, it provides clear evidence, in contrast to (19)b, that restrictive relatives modify their head N (or more accurately, N - cf. McCawley 1981 for further arguments to this effect) rather than NP. Since the restrictive relative modifies (i.e. restricts) the denotation of its head N (i.e. noun potentially modified by one or more adjective phrases, as well as a prepositional phrase), the reference of the whole NP cannot be at issue. The reverse holds in the case of non-restrictive relatives. One further property of English relative pronouns is that, in the colloquial variety of the standard language, the direct object restrictive relative pronoun may be omitted (i.e. replaced by zero). This is a reflection of the highly presupposed nature of the material contained in restrictive relatives, as well as of the high degree of topicality of relative pronouns. As Giv6n (1979a:l49) points out, the dependent or subordinate character of relative clauses with their object relative pronoun missing is easy for the addressee to infer due to the resulting sequence NP - NP V- ... Non-restrictive object relative pronouns, however, are never omissible - perhaps due to their higher degree of referentiality, representing as they do an argument of the verb of their clause. As far as the formal representation of relative pronouns is concerned, Rijksbaron (1981:236-7) suggests the following as a means of capturing the semantic and pragmatic pro~erties isolated above, within Dik's Functional Grammar model: (20) (R's (8)) Restrictive relatives a (dlxi: (boyN(xi): studyv (Rxi)Ag(dlxj: libraryN(xj))Loc)) b the boy who studies in the library (21) (R's (9)) Non-restrictive relatives a ((dlxi: boyN(xi))(studyv(Rxi)Ag(dlxj: libraryN(xj)Loc)) b The boy, who studies in the library, •• In both (20)a and (2l)a, the Agent argument slot for the second 'restrictor' study contains the relativization operator R (analogous to Chomsky's (1981) wh-operator) binding the argument variable for this position, coindexed with the variable bound by the operator which has the whole expression in its scope (that is, the definiteness operator d). By convention, the first predicate in the sequence of 'restrictors' following the initial operator and the variable it binds is 56

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora the head of the actual surface noun phrase, and the remainder are marked as subordinate to that head. Thus the predication whose 'nucleus' is study, together with its Locative 'satellite' in the library, are specifically marked as having to end up in the form of a relative clause, the relative pronoun eventually moving to PI position (a position reserved for special emphasis preceding the elements of the 'nucleus', analogous to COMP within REST). However, while (20)a is a reasonable representation for the restrictive relative clause in (20)b (in that the entire sequence of elements is contained within two brackets, and as such is correctly predicted to be a constituent), the same cannot be said for (2l)a as an attempt to capture the properties of the non-restrictive relative in (2l)b. The reason would appear to be that, although the head 'term' is separated from the elements that will eventually form the relative clause (indicating that non-restrictive relatives modify terms rather than predicates, as is the case with restrictive relatives- cf. (20)a), the variable bound by the relativization operator R in the Agent argument slot of study is represented by the same letter as well as index as the term variable bound by the operator introducing the head term (namely, xi). Yet the former variable is no longer within the scope of the head term's operator, because of the (necessary) double brackets enclosing the head term. Thus, under these circumstances, the third occurrence of the variable cannot be bound by the head term's operator; and indeed, the sequence of elements beginning with study here does not (and cannot) form a composite single expression with the head term - indeed, the bracketing in (2l)a explicitly indicates this. As we have already seen, the only case in which we have to do with a bound variable in representing the semantics of relatives is in that of the restrictive relative pronoun, the non-restrictive one being analogous to deictic ordinary pronouns capable of contracting a relation of coreference with their 'antecedent'. Webber (1979:2-29-30) suggests a similar way of representing restrictive relatives, but using the lambda or abstraction operator which has the entire relative clause within its scope. (22)a illustrates her representation of indefinite relatives, while (23)a, shows that of definite ones. (22)a

(~x:A(u:Peanut)[(~y:Gorilla) . Gave Wendy, u, y]) a peanut that Wendy gave to a gorilla

(23)a

(ix:A(u:T-shirt)[Bought Sue, u]x)

b

b

the T-shirt that Sue bought

These are not standard predicate calculus representations,

57

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora since the predicates within the relative clause are, correctly, not represented as being on the same level as the head-noun predicate(as they would be in the standard representation (~x: \(u:Peanut) & (~y: Gorilla) & (Gave Wendy, u,y)). This is the effect of the square brackets enclosing the relative clause in both (22)a and (23)a, as well as of the lambda operator's having scope over the entire relative clause. In (23)a, the definite (iota) operator i is used to represent singular definite NPs. The use of the lambda operator in representing restrictive relatives would bring these expressions into line, as desired, with other strict nominal anaphors such as the reflexives and 'bound-anaphora' interpretations of ordinary pronouns, which clearly require the presence of this operator in their semantic representation (seep. 44 above). Having devoted a great deal of attention so far to English strict nominal anaphora, let us now look at the comparable phenomena in French.

3. 2

FRENCH NOMINAL ANAPHORA

None of the three classes of English 'strict' nominal anaphora discussed in 3.1 appears to involve reference,in the sense of 'coreference'. All three types appear to be crucially bound up with the creation of semantico-grammatical structure, and operate within a narrowly-defined functional-semantic domain. In none of these types of case do purely formal considerations (such as c-command relationships) appear to be criteria!. Moreover, there appear to be systematic parallels in each case between an anaphor variant performing a strict anaphora function and one fulfilling a more pragmatic, referential role. This strongly suggests, following Givan's (1979a,b) general thesis, that the former variants have been grammaticalized from the latter, so that their particular properties arise from this grammaticalization. The situation is illustrated particularly clearly by the contrast between restrictive and non-restrictive relatives, the latter retaining a looser, quasi-paratactic relationship with the 'antecedent' clause, the former having contracted a hypotactic, embedded relationship with the clause in which their controller head N occurs. I begin my survey of French non-referential nominal anaphora by a discussion of reflexive clauses, followed by the counterpart of complement 'subject' control, and will end, as in 3.1, with an examination of relative clauses. 3.2.1 Reflexive pronouns French clitic reflexive pronouns have as their defining characteristic, according to Milner (1982:339), the property that, out of context, they are ambiguous between a reflexive and a reci58

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora procal interpretation (so long as the controller is plural or refers to a set). This immediately differentiates them from their English counterparts, in that in English a morphologically distinct form bears the reciprocal interpretation. Just as in English, where there is a parallel between a more restrictive, grammatically-defined form and a less restrictive, more pragmatically-determined one (namely, unstressed himself,etc., and each other, on the one hand, versus emphatic hims~lf,etc. and each ... the other(s), on the other), so in French, there is a systematic opposition between the reflexive clitic se, etc., having a 'reflexive' interpretation, 10 and the disjunctive form lui/ .. -m~me, and between the 'reciprocal' reflexive clitic se and the explicit reciprocal anaphor l'un(e), l'autre/les un(e)s, les autres. The explicit, periphrastic reciprocal forms in both languages express literal, exact reciprocity, whereas the simple, unstressed forms need convey only a vague, approximate reciprocal meaning. Both himself and se, and their respective sets of variants, are non-nominative, accusative forms; their essential difference is that, while himself, due to its disjunctive, potentially stress-bearing form, may occur in (non-subject) NP-argument positions (though, as I claimed in 3.1.1, as a 'pure' reflexive, it is not itself an argument) se is a clitic pronoun and so is part of the V constituent dominating the verb to which it is attached (see Kayne, 1975 and Emonds, 1978 for justification of this Phrase Structure analysis). Hence, it is even less of an independent referring expression than himself, whose component parts, as we saw in 3.1.1 (pp.44-45), may under certain circumstances undergo partially independent agreement processes, its head N self being able to agree in terms of its controller's referential number value. No such possibility is open to se, which never occurs in NP-argument positions. Indeed, se in its various functions has been analysed as a kind of affix, marking the intransitivity or passive voice of the verb to which it is attached (cf., e.g., Grimshaw, 1982; Milner, 1982 holds a diametrically opposite view, at least in respect of the true reflexive/reciprocal interpretation of the pronoun). Thus, even more clearly than in the case of the English reflexive (see p.44 above), the French reflexive clitic does not enter into a relation of coreference with its controller (usually, the subject of its clause). Instead, it is linked grammatically with the latter in terms of a binding relation involving the features number and person (number being relevant morpho-syntactically only for the first and second person reflexive forms). That it is critically bound up with the predicative properties of its host verb may be seen in the traditionallyrecognised existence of a separate class of so-called 59

'Strict' Nominal- Anaphora 'pronominal (reflexive) verbs', whose sub-classes exhibit specific properties which differentiate them from their nonpronominal counterparts (where these exist). There is, first of all, the sub-class of intrinsically reflexive verbs, such as s'~vanouir 'to faint', se souc:ier 'to worry', se suic:ider 'to commit suicide', for which there exists no non-reflexive counterpart. The reflexive pronoun appears to make no specific contribution to the meaning of the host verb (however, it seems that the vast majority of such verbs are grammatically intransitive). Then there is a productive sub-class of 'pronominal' verbs which are in a regular relationship with non-pronominal, causative-transitive verbs (e.g. se nettoyer 'to clean oneself/ to be cleaned', se dire 'to be said', se vendre 'to be sold', in relation to nettoyer 'to clean', dire 'to say', and vendre 'to sell', respectively). These are commonly known as 'middle' pronominal verbs (se moyen), and sustain an interpretation which is close to that of the passive construction where an agent is always implied. Given the regular relationship of these verbs with their transitive, non-pronominal counterparts, this latter property of middle pronominal verbs is predictable, in that their transitive counterparts are causative verbs whose subject must be agentive. The function of the se moyen construction being to promote the direct object of the causative-transitive construction to subject status (thereby 'inchoativizing' the verb- cf. Grimshaw, 1982), the role of the agent in the process denoted by the verb will, while not overtly expressed, nevertheless be implicit. The examples in (24) and (25) illustrate this relationship: (24)a

On dit souvent des betises 'One often says stupid things'

b

Cette librairie vend des livres de cuisine de cent par jour

a

raison

'This bookshop sells cookery books at the rate of a hundred a day' c

Georges nettoie sa voiture au savon 'Georges cleans his car with soap'

(25)a

Des betises se disent souvent 'Stupid things are often said'

b

Des livres de cuisine se vendent en ce moment raison de cent par jour

a

'Cookery books are selling at the rate of a hundred a day at the moment' 60

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora c

Une voiture peut se nettoyer au savon 'A car may be cleaned with soap'

The direct objects of the transitive verbs dire, vendre and nettoyer in (24)a,b and c respectively, are promoted to

subject status in (25)a, b and c. There are, however, certain restrictions constraining this promotion: the promoted direct object cannot be specific in reference, and the tense/aspect of the containing clause cannot be punctual (cf. Ruwet, 1972, Grimshaw, 1982, Lyons, 1982). The two factors are evidently linked, in that a generic, non-punctual predicate tends to assign generic or non-specific reference to a (definite or indefinite) subject NP (see also 3.2.3 below). Thus, in (25)a, b and c, the derived subject NP is both indefinite and non-specific in reference, and the predicates are non-punctual; whereas, at least in (24)c, the direct object is both definite and specific in reference (cf. ? La voiture de Georges se

nettoie au savon, *La voiture de Georges s'est nettoy~ hier au savon: respectively, 'George's car may be/is cleaned with soap', 'George's car was cleaned yesterday with soap').

Ruwet (1972, Ch.3) gives a number of arguments in favour of deriving middle se transformationally, while both intrinsic se and so-called 'neutral' se (to which I will turn presently) are lexically and semantically idiosyncratic, and so should, according to Ruwet, be base-generated as distinct lexical forms. A third sub-class of pronominal reflexive verbs is the so-called 'neutral' type. Like middle se, these also encode a meaning value similar to that expressed by the passive voice, in that they promote the direct object of a corresponding transitive verb to derived subject status. They differ semantically, however, in that their interpretation involves no implication of an agent; and this semantic difference correlates with a number of divergent syntactic properties (see Ruwet, 1972:Ch.3 for a detailed discussion of these). Similarly, their precise interpretation as pronominal verbs cannot always be predicted from their transitive senses, nor is there always a non-pronominal, transitive counterpart for them. Examples of neutral pronominal verbs are se disperser 'to disperse', se promener 'to go for a walk', and s'endormir 'to fall asleep'. Though these verbs all have a transitive-causative nonpronominal counterpart, they do not, in their 'neutral' use, imply the involvement of any agent. Moreover, they are both intransitive grammatically and inchoative semantically. C. Lyons (1982: 178) argues in favour of blurring the sharp distinction which Ruwet (1972) draws between the middle and the neutral sub-types, in view of the fact that their common function of signalling voice (through promoting the direct object of their transitive counterparts, where these exist) is 61

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora more central than their undoubted semantic and syntactic differences. A further reason for grouping them together lies in the fact that they are not, contrary to Ruwet's 'syntacticist' analysis, distinct verbal forms but rather differentiable semantic interpretations of the same reflexive form - in the same way that the true reflexive vs. reciprocal interpretations are (contextually-determined) readings of one and the same morpho-syntactic form. Lyons (1982: 178) underlines in this respect the obvious fact that it is the semantics of the host verb which determines whether or not an implied agent is present in the state of affairs denoted by the reflexive clause as a whole. Ruwet (1972), indeed, points out several instances where there is ambiguity between a middle, neutral, true reflexive or reciprocal interpretation of a pronominal verb, of which (26) is one: (26)

(R's (53a)) les enfants, a b c

~a

se lave en dix minutes

(middle reading)'children, they can be washed in ten minutes' (reflexive reading) 'children, they wash themselves in ten minutes' (reciprocal reading) 'children, they wash each other in ten minutes'

In (27), there is ambiguity between a middle and a neutral interpretation of the pronominal verb:

(27) a b

(R's (54a)) une foule,

~a

se disperse aisement

(middle reading) 'a crowd, that can easily be dispersed' (neutral reading) 'a crowd, that disperses easily'

In the first three of these sub-types of reflexive pronom1nal verbs, the reflexive clitic does not correspond to a semantic argument of its host verb, but is a marker of the intransitive, and/or passive-voice character of the verbal group. Quite clearly, then, there can be no question of the reflexive pronoun in such constructions corresponding to the object argument of a transitive verb, an argument which happens to be 'coreferential' with its subject (as in the classical transformational analysis of reflexive pronouns, which would entail the semantically and syntactically impossible underlying structure *une foulei disperse cettejZa foulei aisement, 'a crowdi disperses thatjthe crowdi easily'). In Grimshaw's (1982) Lexical-Functional analysis, indeed, both middle and neutral se are viewed as types of intrinsic se, that is, as the obligatory surface reflex of a particular type of lexical operation which has been performed on the predicate-argument structure of their corresponding non-pronominal transitive verb. As in the case of the intrinsic reflexives, this operation consists in replacing one of the grammatical functions 62

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora corresponding to a particular logical argument in the transitive verb's lexical entry by zero, which is automatically bound (presumably indirectly, via lambda-abstraction) by the subject argument. Grimshaw shows that verbs containing reflexive clitics interpretable as true reflexives/reciprocals are, like the middle/neutral/intrinsic reflexive verbs, grammatically intransitive in that they undergo processes whose application is restricted to intransitive verbs (e.g. NP Extraposition, and the version of the Causative Complement Rule (namely 'faire-infinitive') which applies only to intransitive verbs: 1982: 111-131). The only difference between true reflexive se and middle/neutral se (Grimshaw appears to recognise only middle se in the case of the latter pair) is apparent at the level of predicate-argument structure: where Reflexivization involves the binding of one grammatical argument to the subject argument,Inchoativization (i.e. the source of middle/neutral se) involves a change in semantic structure whereby the initial subject argument is assigned the object function, and the initial object is replaced by zero and obligatorily bound by the derived subject. One major semantic difference between reflexive clitics bearing the true reflexive interpretation and non-reflexive clitics is stressed by Zribi-Hertz (1980:153-5) and Lyons (1982:176-7). It is that the nature of the action or process denoted by the host verb is often different in each case, a difference which is not predicted by an account which views reflexive and non-reflexive clitics as equivalent save for the obligatory 'coreference' with the subject in the case of the reflexives. In the case of non-reflexive clitics (and non-pronominal object NPs generally), if the verb is active (i.e. non-stative), the clause as a whole may refer to a situation in which the referent of the object NP is operated upon in some way by an external agent. In the case of the same verbs constructed with reflexive clitic pronouns, on the other hand, the verb will tend to refer to an 'internal' (psychological) action, process or state. As an example, consider the verb chercher: (28)a b

Pierre Zes cherche Pierre se cherche

In (28)a, chercher can only be construed in its literal, active sense (i.e. 'Pierre is looking for them'); whereas in (28)b, the same verb takes on a psychological interpretation due to the presence of the reflexive clitic, marking the binding of its logical argument corresponding to the object function by the subject (i.e. 'Pierre is trying to find himself' (that is, 'trying to establish his identity')). Other such contrasts are provided by jeter 'to throw' vs se jeter 'to throw oneself' (i.e. to leap), sentir qqch. 'to feel something' vs se sentir 63

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora 'to feel (ill/happy/pain •• )', sauver qn./qqch. 'to save s.one/ s.thing' vs. se sauver 'to escape/run away'. However, it must be admitted that this is by no means invariably the case, as pairs such as [rapper 'to hit' vs. se frapper 'to hit oneself', and blesser 'to wound' vs. se blesser 'to be/get wounded' testify. (However, note that in the latter case, the pronominal version can onlyhave an 'accidental' and stative or habitual sense, while the non-pronominal transitive verb has only a 'deliberate', active sense). The work that I have seen which goes furthest in attributing the possibility of intra-clausal reflexive and nonreflexive anaphora in French to properties of the verb is Zribi-Hertz (1980). In it, she shows (as I have been arguing throughout) that intra-clausal anaphora is constrained by essentially grammatico-semantic factors, rather than by the structural conditions embodied in the three Binding Conditions of the GB theory (see note 4 for these). Disjunctive as well as certain clitic pronouns (i.e. non-'anaphors') in French may find their 'antecedent' (i.e. controller) within their governing category, thereby violating Binding Condition (B) of the GB theory: (29)a

Un traini peut eni cacher un autre 'A/one train may hide another'

b

Pierrej pense souvent a luij,k 'Pierrej often thinks of himselfjlhimk'

(NB.subscripted letters here indicate potential anaphoric relations). In (29)a, the pronoun en, not obviously an 'anaphor' in Chomsky's (1981) sense, can only be bound by the NP un train, which is within its governing category. In (29)b, the disjunctive non-reflexive pronoun lui may or may not have the NP Pierre as its controller, again contrary to the prediction of Binding Condition (B). Yet the types of anaphoric relationships indicated in (29) are not always possible, as (30) shows: (30)a

(Z-H's (57)) *Victori eni est hors (cf. Victori est hors de luii) 'Victor is beside himself (with anger)'

b

(Z-H's (62~) *Victori a fait plaisir

a

luii

'Victor pleased himself/did himself a favour' While (30)a is ungrammatical per se, due to the fact that the 64

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora oblique clitic en has no other potential controller than the illegitimate Victor, 11 lui in (30)b,being disjunctive, may receive contrastive stress (and thereby act as anaphor to Victor) or have as controller an appropriate NP in surrounding discourse, or refer deictically to a salient male individual in the context of utterance. In order to obtain an anaphoric relation between lui and Victor in (30)b, the (unstressed) pronoun would have to be reflexive in form (i.e. Victor a fait plaisir ~ lui-m~me/Victor s'est fait plaisir). The impossibility of the binding relations indicated in (30)a and b cannot be due to purely structural constraints on anaphoric linkage, since the same structural relationships obtain in (29)a,b and the alternative version of (30)a, where intra-clausal anaphora is possible. Chomsky (1981:289ff) in fact recognises the problem posed for the Binding Theory by the behaviour of clitic and disjunctive pronouns in the Romance languages (he discusses examples taken from French and Italian). However, his reaction is not to abandon the structural framework constituted by the Binding Theory, but to redefine the recalcitrant phenomena so that they fit the theory more satisfactorily. Thus, he suggests (p.289) that in languages which possess clitic pronouns alongside disjunctive ones, it is the clitics which conform to Principle (B) of the Binding Theory, and that their disjunctive counterparts are 'emphatic' (cf. the English emphatic reflexive pronoun, briefly examined in 3.1.1) and so are 'immune' to this principle. However, Chomsky does not pursue this line of inquiry in any detail. Zribi-Hertz, for her part, explains these differences in of the nature of the situation described by the clause in each type of case: the predicate may express either a direct, contemporaneous relation between two entities, or an indirect, mediated one (in both time and space). One might view this distinction in terms of the degree of transitivity of the clause as a whole, in the sense of Hopper & Thompson, 1980. These two types of relationship represent foci or poles, in the sense that any particular predication may be situated at some position along a cline in either direction. The hypothesis formulated, then, is that the more direct the semantic relation established by the predicate between two 'actors' (actants), the less natural will be a 'coreferential' relation between the NPs that represent them, where the rightmost is a disjunctive (non-reflexive) pronoun or lexical NP: in such cases, either the pronoun is interpreted as referring deictically (the preferred interpretation), or as 'coreferential' nevertheless with the leftmost NP, but creating a 'schizophrenic' interpretation. On the other hand, the more indirect the relation established by the predicate between the two actors, the more natural will be a coreferential interpretation of the leftmost NP and a rightward disjunctive (non-reflexive) pronoun. The disjunctive reflexive pronoun (the lui-m~me series) occurs term~

65

'Strict ' Nomina 2- Anaphora naturally in the gap left by the non-reflexive disjunctive pronoun (the lui-series) -that is, in the first, 'direct' type of semantic relationship. It may also occur as the rightmost NP in the second, 'indirect' type of semantic relationship, so long as the nature of the 'coreferential' (or more accurately, 'anaphoric', see my arguments in this respect earlier in this chapter) relation it would obligatorily contract with its leftward antecedent is intensional, or subjective, rather than extensional and objective (Zribi-Hertz adapts Cantrall's 1974 distinction between English reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns to handle the situation obtaining in French; cf. p.41 above). The cyclic domain which Zribi-Hertz chooses in order to test her hypotheses concerning the reflexive and nonreflexive disjunctive pronouns is the syntactic frame represented in (31): (31)

(Z-H's (25))

[

a

W NP· X }Prep} ~ { Conj}

Y Pro; ....

Z]

a represents the cyclic domain, W,X,Y and Z are variables, and NPi (exclusively an animate, human NP in her examples) is the putative controller. The reason for choosing this configuration is that it would require the Proi to appear as a disjunctive rather than clitic pronoun, thus permitting a comparison between the properties of lui and lui-m~me. Non-reflexive clitic pronouns, as both Zribi-Hertz and Morin (1978) point out, generally tend to create an unnatural, 'schizophrenic' effect when it is attempted to interpret them as 'coreferential' with (i.e. 'anaphoric' to) their verb's subject (but, see examples of type (29)a). In (29)b and the alternative version of (30)a, the predicates establish an indirect semantic relation between the two actors involved: in (29)b, the one thinking and the one thought about (in the anaphoric interpretation of lui) are not identical, and are not necessarily contemporaneous. It is, in this case, some aspect of his personality, or some role in society which he has performed, a~out which Pierre often thinks. This is perhaps more clearly the case in the alternative version of (30)a, where Victor has metaphorically stepped outside himself - that is, he is momentarily not his normal self, so that it is as if two distinct individuals are involved in the predication. The difference between the two predicates is highlighted by the fact that in the former case, but not the latter, the disjunctive reflexive form lui-m&me is possible, reflecting the higher degree of intensionality and subjectivity of the 'coreference' relation in the former example. (30)b is strictly ungrammatical, because, unlike the situation in (29)b, the lui phrase is dative and so must be cliticised (unless it is assigned contrastive stress). Zribi-Hertz claims that the resulting form ( x Victori luii a fait plaisir) yields a 'schizophrenic' interpretation when it is attempted, unnaturally, to construe lui as anaphoric to Victor. (The symbol •x• is her signal of the schizophrenic interpretation). The i':1:

66

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora schizophrenic interpretation is obtained whenever a 'coreferential' interpretation is attempted via the disjunctive nonreflexive pronoun lui (or its variants) where the predicate establishes a semantically direct relation between the putative controller and pronoun. The following are Zribi-Hertz's examples of this: (32)a xvictori bavarde avec luii 'Victor chats with himself' b xvictori est gentil pour luii 'Victor is kind to himself' c x.Marie a

~Hoigne

Victori de lui

'Marie estranged Victor from himself' In each of the above examples, the disjunctive reflexive pronoun lui-m~me would re-establish a natural 'coreferential' (i.e. anaphoric) relation between the full NP and the pronoun. 3.2.2 Complement 'subject' control It will be recalled from 3.1.2 that I am viewing so-called complement 'subject' control as essentially an agreement process determined via the lexical composition of a complementtaking verb and its infinitival or participial complement in terms of function-argument interpretation. The choice of argument to which this complex predicate is applied as a function is determined by the semantic structure of the complement-taking verb, which in certain cases is itself determined pragmatically by the type of illocutionary act which the verb is being used in context to perform, as well as by the choice of infinitival or participial complementation rather than clausal (where such a choice is possible). The interpretation of the surface infinitival or participial complement as being 'controlled' by the argument to which the derived complex predicate is applied simply follows from this application. Essentially the same analysis can be applied to the equivalent phenomena in French, and indeed, this is in essence the argument developed in Fauconnier (1980), as we shall see. In French (where only infinitival verbal complementation is possible), this semantic 'agreement' process is actually signalled morphologically whenever the complement's predicative element is capable of showing agreement (i.e. is a past participle or adjective). Such a situation is illustrated by (33)a and b: (33)a

' •.. Le marche du travail leur [=les jeunes] donne le sentiment d'etre superflus, inutiles •. ' (Le Monde, 8.5.82).

67

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora 1 • • • The labour market gives them [=young people] a sense of being superfluous (masc, plur), useless (plur).'

iseule{ { *seulf · 'Jeanne threatened her husband to live {alone (fem,sing) {, {*alone(masc,sing)}

b Jeanne a

menac~

son mari de vivre

In both these examples, the complement's predicative element consists of or contains at least one adjective agreeing in both gender and number with the NP representing the argument to which the entire complement, after lexical composition with its governing verb (in the case of (33)a) or verb plus Goal argument (in the case of (33)b), is applied as a complex function. (In (33)a, the adjective inutile, 'useless', is able to manifest only agreement in number with its containing predicate's controller). The obligatory nature of the control relation in such cases is shown by the ungrammaticality of the version of (33)b in which the adjective in question agrees with the other argument of the governing verb, namely son mari (masc, sing). Such a morphological reflex of the semantic relation contracted by the elements involved is analogous to the obligatory agreement in person and number expressed by the bound possessive morpheme within the English reflexive pronoun, when the complex predicate which it serves to create is applied to the argument which that predicate selects (cf. 3.1.1 above). Fauconnier (1980:Ch.7), as has already been mentioned, attempts to provide an analysis of French 'control' phenomena essentially in terms of semantic function-argument relations. However, he maintains that aspect of the traditional generative analysis (preserved in recent and current GB analyses in the shape of the abstract 'ungoverned' argument PRO) in which there is a syntactic subject of the complement at some level of representation. Fauconnier's work, written in the early 1970's, assumes a transformational approach to complement control, whereby the (now universally abandoned) rule of Equi NP Deletion is said to reduce tensed complement clauses, thus yielding infinitive phrases. Fauconnier argues that, in cases of obliga~ory control, there is no way independently of the operation of Equi to determine whether the verb of the matrix clause has any effect on which of two non-sentential arguments will ac·t as controller for the (as he sees it) empty complement subject. Given the (erroneous) assumption that infinitives are derived through the obligatory application of Equi (in the case of 'obligatory control' verbs, such as promettre 'to promise', jurer 'to swear', and m~priser 'to despise'), the only procedure available is simply to mark such verbs in the lexicon with the arbitrary specification that one of their arguments is the obligatory trigger for a reduction of their sentential complement, via Equi.

68

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora However, by exam~n~ng the behaviour of these same verbs in non-Equi environments (cf. the procedure adopted by Dowty, 1985, discussed in 3.1.2), certain systematic semantic relationships between one or other of their non-sentential arguments and the sentential complement can be pinpointed. Representative examples are given below: (34)a b (35)a

b

(36)a

b

(37)a

b

J'ai ordonne a Walter (de quitter le pays] 'I ordered Walter to leave the country' J'ai ordonne a Walter [que son fils quitte le pays] 'I ordered Walter to have his son leave the country' Les locataires ont demande au proprietaire [de repeindre la maison] 'The tenants asked the owner to re-paint the house' Les locataires ont demande au proprietaire [que la maison soit repeinte] 'The tenants asked the owner for the house to be re-painted' Le patron a promis aux clients [de rendre la nourriture gratuite] 'The boss promised the customers to have the food provided free of charge' Le patron a promis aux clients [que la nourriture serait gratuite] 'The boss promised the customers that the food would be free of charge' L'agent immobilier nous a assures [de rendre la maison en bon etat] 'The estate agent promised us to put the house in good order' L 'agent immobilier nous a assures [que la maison serait en bon etat] 'The estate agent assured us that the house would be in good order'

In each of the pairs of sentences in (34) and (35), there is a constant semantic relation between the indirect object argument of the matrix verb and the proposition expressed by the complement clause: namely, the individual referred to by the indirect object NP is responsible for bringing about the state of affairs referred to by the complement clause (cf. Foley & Van Valin Jr.'s 1984 identical analysis of the equivalent English phenomena, seen in 3.1.2). That is, Walter is responsible for leaving the country in (34)a, and for having 69

'S~rict'

Nominal Anaphora

his son leave the country in (34)b; and the owner is responsible for re-painting the house in (35)a, and for having the house re-painted in (35)b. In the sentence pairs in (36) and (37), on the other hand, it is between the subject argument and the complement clause that there is a constant semantic relation: here, it is the individual referred to by the subject NP who is responsible for bringing about the state of affairs referred to by the complement clause. The boss is responsible for providing the customers with food free of charge in (36)a and b; and the estate agent is responsible for having the house put in good order in (37)a and b. In each case, then, it is the matrix verb which induces this constant semantic relation, the only difference between the two sub-categories of obligatory-control verbs being in the choice of the non-sentential argument which manifests it. Fauconnier suggests (p.458) that one of the components of the logical structure of each of the verbs in (34)-(37) is that represented in (38). (38)

x wants [y cause P],

where x represents the subject argument in (34) and (35) (for the case of ordonner and demander, which are both 'directive' illocutionary verbs), and the indirect object argument in (36) and (37) 'for the case of promettre and assurer - both 'commissive' illocutionary verbs). y, on the other hand, represents the indirect object argument in (34) and (35), and the subject argument in (36) and (37). He further suggests that, for a number of verbs (e.g. prier 'beg', supplier 'to plead (with)'), the bringing about of the state of affairs referred to by the complement clause may be interpreted as either in the interest of, or to ~he detriment of, the referent of the argument which does not directly cause that state of affairs to come about (i.e. x in (38)). demander~

Thirdly, the proposition expressed by the complement clause may simply describe a property of one of the other two arguments of the verb. These three types of relationship constitute different ways in which the relevance of the complement clause may be determined in relation to one (or more) of the arguments of the verb. Fauconnier (1980:p.463) then proceeds to posit a Control Principle (C), which states that if the semantic structure of a verb taking a complement clause as one of its arguments involves one of the three components described above, then the 70

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora other argument involved in the relation may serve as the controller of the null subject of the infinitival form of the complement clause.12 Fauconnier includes the second of the three types of semantic relationship between a non-sentential argument and the complement clause described above, in order to allow the (b) as well as (a) versions of the following sentences. (Here, purely for ease of exposition, I use the PRO subject notation adopted in GB theory to illustrate Fauconnier's intended interpretations of the examples): (39)

Platoni mja

Plato

(40)

asked

! ! !

t begged

demande supplie implore

implored

(a) PRO· l'accompagner [ de (b) P'ROJi m'accompagner

me to

~

ll

{(a) accompany him } {(b) accompany me 5

(a) de PRO· l'envoyer en Egypte ~ Cesari a menace Pomp~eJ· [ { (b) d' P'ROJl.' etre envoye~ en Egypte 1 A

Caesar threatened Pompey

(b) t(a)

to send him to Egypt~ to be sent to Egypt

The (a) versions of (39) and (40) are much more natural than the (b) ones (this is reflected in the less than idiomatic English glosses of the two (b) versions); however, this is not predicted by Fauconnier (nor even noted as such), since his Control Principle (C) gives equal weight to each of the three types of semantic relationship induced by the verb between its arguments. The (a) versions of the two examples involve a relatronship between the individual most directly capable of bringing about the state of affairs described in the complement clause, and that state of affairs (i.e. the speaker in (39)a, and Caesar in (40)a). This corresponds exactly to Fauconnier's first type of semantic relationship, where the speaker and Caesar are the direct causers of P (i.e. they correspond to y in (38)). But in the corresponding (b) versions of these examples, the relationship between the state of affairs in the complement clause and the non-causer argument in the matrix is one of potential benefit (to Plato in (39)b), or of disadvantage (to Pompey in (40)b). Yet though it is clear that (given the appropriate context), a control relation can be established in terms of this kind of semantic relationship, it is equally clear that it is less preferred, particularly when an alternative control relation in terms of 'direct causer of P' is also available. Fauconnier points out, indeed, that the

71

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora 'potential benefit/disadvantage' relationship is not directly part of the semantic structure of the verbs in question, but is a (pragmatic) inference which may be drawn from it. Finally, Fauconnier makes the very same point that Foley & Van Valin Jr. (1984) make in respect of the equivalent English control phenomena (cf. 3.1.2): namely, given that control relations are determined by the semantic properties of the matrix verb, it is predictable that when a verb is used in a 'derived' sense, its control properties will change correspondingly. Prier, as in (41) and (42) (Fauconnier's examples), illustrates this: (41)

Le capitaine vousi prie [de PROi balayer la cour] 'The captain asks you to sweep the courtyard'

(42)

Le capitainej vous prie [d' PROj etre place vous

a

table]

a

cote de

'The captain requests of you to be placed next to you at table' (i.e. 'The captain requests that you have him placed next to you at table') (42) illustrates the literal sense of prier, where the second type of semantic relationship comes into play (that is, where 'being placed next to you at table' is perceived as being to the captain's advantage). In (41), on the other hand, where prier is used in the derived sense of 'order', the first type of semantic relationship takes priority, since the sense in which prier is used here is more obviously directive than in (42). That is, the sense of prier in (41) involves the direct causing (by the addressee)of the state of affairs described in the complement 'clause', whereas in (42), this relationship is not necessarily so direct. (41) and (42), then, would seem to be further examples which illustrate the hierarchical nature of the three types of semantic relationship induced by the verb between its matrix argument(s) and the complement 'clause': where the sense of the verb requires the presence of the first type of relation (i.e. [y cause P]), then it takes priority in determining the controlling argument; where the sense of the verb does not require that one of its arguments directly bring about the state of affairs P, then the second type of semantic connection may come into operation, allowing that the argument to whose advantage/disadvantage the existence of P would be may be the controller of the null complement 'subject'. In (41), this is impossible, even though the yard's being swept would be to the advantage of the captain. In the case of (42), an alternative version is possible (namely, (43)), but here, 72

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora predictably, the interpretation may only be such that the referent of vous would directly be responsible for the state of affairs described in the complement 'clause': Le capitaine vousi prie [de PROi le placer vous a table]

(43)

a cote

de

'The captain asks/requests you to place him next to you at table'. 3.2.3 Relative clauses Restrictive relative clauses are like infinitival (or participial) complements, in that they involve an essential dependency relation between two clauses, such that an argument in the superordinate clause binds a variable in the subordinate one. They differ, however, in at least two respects: first, relative clauses may be tensed or untensed (i.e. infinitival), while complement phrases may only be untensed; and second, restrictive relative clauses, at least, are a constituent of NP (that is, they have anN as their head), while complement phrases are a constituent of VP (that is, they have a V as their head). As far as French is concerned, Milner (1973:33), following Smith's (1964:38) analysis of English relatives, suggests an analysis in which the relative clause would originate within the Determiner node of an NP, and would then be obligatorily extraposed to the right of its head N. That is, the source of (44)a would be (44)b: (44)a

Le livre qui est

a moi ...

'The book which is mine •.•

1

b

The evidence which Smith bases this analysis upon 13 is the fact that the choice between a restrictive and a non-restrictive relative clause is crucially dependent on the determiner of the 'antecedent' NP (or, more accurately, on the kind of referential interpretation which the determiner assigns to its NP as a whole). Basically, if the 'antecedent' NP refers independently to a specific entity, then it may take only a non-restrictive relative; if it does not refer at all (cf. any N, all Ns), it may take only restrictive relatives; and if it may be interpreted either as referring independently to a specific entity or to some unspecified entity, then it may accept either type of relative, where the choice of one or the other type resolves the potential ambiguity of reference. However, as Smith herself recognizes (1964:47-52), it is not the mere formal presence of a particular determiner which 73

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora triggers this, since, for example, the article a (and un, in French- see pp 76-7below) may be ambiguous between the interpretations 'specific indefinite', 'non-specific indefinite' and 'generic'; and it is only the wider lexico-grarnrnatical as well as discourse context which determines which referential value the NP it introduces will assume in any instance. Having relative clauses originate inside the Det node may capture the article-like function of relative pronouns (noted, among others, by Benveniste, 1966:Ch.l7), but it does not reflect the essentially adjectival function of (restrictive) relative clauses. Moreover, as we saw in 3.1.3, though restrictive relatives modify N, and so may be analysed as forming part of NP, nonrestrictive relatives clearly modify NP (or S or AP), and so are not even a constituent of the minimal category containing their 'antecedent'. Thus it is preferable to analyse restrictive relatives in both English and French asS's dominated, like Adjective Phrases, by N, and for non-restrictive relatives to be handled as independent clauses whose subject WH- or QU-marked NP is a referring expression interpreted as anaphoric to a preceding phrasal constituent (NP, S or AP). The semantic-pragmatic restrictions on the nature of the 'antecedent' in each case would follow both from the syntactic status (as well as the corresponding referential potential) or each type of relative pronoun, and from the principle regulating discourse coherence which affects the integration of 'antecedent' and anaphoric clauses in general. In fact, the relative pronouns in each language (apart from the existence in French of the series lequel/auquel/duquel ('which'/'who', 'to which'/'whom', 'of which'/'whom') etc., which are essentially reserved for use as non-restrictive relative pronouns) are formally identical in each type of function: it is, indeed, the nature of the grammatico-referential function which the relative clause as a whole is performing in each type of case which induces their distinctive syntactic status. As in the case of all the other types of anaphora we have so far discussed, it is the properties of the predicate of both the relative (anaphoric) clause and the 'antecedent' or controller clause which primarily determine the potential nature of the anaphoric relation created. The properties in question consist not only of the verb's inherent lexical properties, but also of such referentially relevant features as its voice, mood, aspect and tense. Kleiber (198lb) draws an important distinction between 'specifying' and 'non-specifying' predicates which, when acting as the predicate of a relative clause, determine corresponding 'specifying' or 'non-specifying' relatives. A specifying predicate is one whose lexical properties determine

74

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora a spatio-temporal location for its argument(s), whereas a non-specifying predicate is one whose lexical properties determine only a categorial location for its argument(s), to use Thrane's (1980) terminology. The verb rencontrer ('to meet'), for example, when used, refers to a spatia-temporally located act of meeting between two necessarily specific (i.e. also spatia-temporally located) individuals. Hence, rencontrer is a specifying predicate. Parler chinois ('to speak Chinese') or &tre int~ressant ('to be interesting'), on the other hand, are non-specifying predicates since, when used, they predicate a property of an individual or object but in no way pre-determine its specific, spatia-temporal existence. Yet the referentially relevant clausal and verb-phrasal properties of voice, mood, aspect and tense, which are all expressed by the predicate element, may override a predicate's inherent lexical properties in determining its specifying or non-specifying character. This is brought out particularl1 clearly in Kleiber's example of the verb voler 'to steal': 4 (45)a

Pierre a vole 4 000 francs hier 'Pierre stole 4,000 francs yesterday'

b

Pierre vole

a

la moindre occasion

'Pierre steals at the slightest temptation' (My examples) The inherent lexical properties of voler (in the sense of 'to steal') determine its potential reference to a specific act brought about by a (specific) agent upon a (specific) item stolen (the 'Theme' in Gruber's 1976 system of thematic relations). Such a state of affairs is expressed by (45)a, where the present perfect tense/aspect (signalling the present relevance of an action in the past) is used. In (45)b, on the other hand, voler is used in a grammatically intransitive form (though it is still logically transitive), and is moreover in the simple present tense. The 'habitual' sentence adverb a la moindre occasion contributes, together with these two factors, to triggering the 'gnomic' or generic sense of the predicate, so that it expresses an 'internal' property of the subject argument, rather than some specific 'external' act committed by him. Now let us look at some examples of restrictive and nonrestrictive relatives in the light of this distinction. 1 5 (46)a

Un homme que Pierre a rencontre est interessant 'A man whom Pierre met/has met is interesting'

75

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora b c (47)a

#Un homme, que Pierre a rencontre, est interessant Un homme est interessant Un homme

que Pierre a rencontre est dans l'entree

'A man whom Pierre met/has met is in the entrance hall' b

c

(48)a

Un homme, que Pierre a rencontre, est dans l'entree Un homme est dans l'entree Un lion qui boite s'est echappe hier du zoo de Londres

'A lion which limps escaped yesterday from London Zoo' b c

(49)a

Un lion, qui boite, s'est echappe hier du zoo de Londres Un lion s'est echappe hier du zoo de Londres Un lion qui boite est gentil

'A lion which limps is kind' b c

#Un lion, qui boite, est gentil Un lion est gentil

Examples (46)-(49) illustrate the four possible combinations of specifying and non-specifying predicates in matrix and relative clauses: non-specifying matrix and specifying relative ((46)a,b), specifying matrix and specifying relative ((47)a,b), specifying matrix and non-specifying relative ((48)a,b), and non-specifying matrix and non-specifying relative ((49)a,b). The relative clauses in (46)a and (47)a are both specifying restrictive relatives. As such, they entail that the head NP un homme (which out of context is referentially ambiguous) in each case has specific reference. When the non-specifying predicate ~tre int~ressant is applied to the NP un homme, as in (46)c, the only interpretation available for the latter is (predictably) the generic one. Where the subject expression is already independently spatiotemporally located, as in (46)a, the non-specifying predicate may equally well be applied to it, since the only restriction upon its use is that it cannot itself determine the spatiatemporal location (i.e. specificity) of its argument. (46)b, however, is incoherent, since the non-restrictive relative (which is in addition specifying) entails that the 'antecedent' expression is independently referential; the NP un homme, however, cannot be so, since the predicate applied to it is non-specifying. The incoherence is thus due to the referential conflict between the values 'generic', imposed upon the subject NP by ~tre interessant (and verified by (46)c), and 'specific', presupposed by both the non-restrictive and the specifying character of the appended relative clause. (47)b, however, is fully coherent, the only difference with respect to (46)b being that the matrix predicate is specifying, thus independ76

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora ently determining the specificity of the subject un homme. (This is again verified by (47)c, where the specifying predicate imposes the specific interpretation upon the indefinite NP). In (48)a, where the restrictive relative qui boite is non-specifying (due partly to the simple present tense/aspect of boite), the dependent clause imposes no constraint upon the specificity of its controller (the only semantic contribution of the relative here being to restrict the extension of theN lion to the notional sub-class of 'lions which limp'). The specificity of un lion (qui boite) in (48)a is entirely due to the matrix predicate, which is specifying, as verified again in (48)c, where the only interpretation available for un lion is the specific one. It is likewise the specifying nature of the matrix predicate which allows the (non-specifying) non-restrictive relative in (48)b. Finally, in (49)a, where neither predicate is specifying, no incoherence is produced since neither of them determines a spatia-temporally located (specific) referent for their arguments, and so the generic nature of the latter is maintained. (49)b, however, contrasts markedly both with (49)a and with (48)b: for here, the specificity of the 'antecedent' which is presupposed by the non-restrictive character of the relative clause (though not by its non-specifying character) is contradicted by the absence of any such presupposition or assertion on the part of the non-specifying matrix predicate. The only available interpretation which the latter allows its subject term is the generic one, as verified by (49)c. These examples thus point up the importance of taking account of the predicative properties of both matrix and relative clauses in determining the potential interpretation of the shared argument, something which Kleiber (198lb) does not accord the importance it deserves.

3.3

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I have examined three major types of 'strict' nominal anaphora in English and French. All three (in each language) have a referential, or 'discourse' counterpart in which there is a looser, more pragmatically-defined connexion between a phrasal anaphor, interpreted as a quasi-referring expression, and a phrasal 'antecedent'; nevertheless, the morphologically-marked property of dependency which all such anaphors bear (viz. -self~ each ( ... the) other, to or -ing~ who/whose/whom/which in English, and -mtme(s)~ (lfZes)un(e)(s) .. (l'/Zes)autre(s)~ de or¢ (+infinitive)~ qui/que/dont/Zequel (etc.VauqueZ (etc.)/duquel (etc.) in French) means that none

77

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora of them is able to refer deictically, without the mediation of a co-occurring 'antecedent'. (An exception is the case where an infinitival complement is bound by a WH- or QUexpression, as in examples like The manager asked the salesassistant what to do (cf. 3.1.2) and Que faire? Personne ne le sait (lit. 'What to do? No-one knows')). In those cases where there is no change in form (apart from phonetic realisation, in the case of the English reflexives) corresponding to the difference in function (viz. the English pronouns in -self,to/-ing and the relative pronouns, and the French de or ~ (+ infinitive) and mono-morphemic relative pronouns), it is the immediate lexico-grammatical environment in which the pronoun occurs, as well as the wider discourse context, which determines the (non strictly anaphoric) function which it is performing. This is entirely in line with one of the findings of Chapter 2, which was that it is the grammatical context in which a non-lexical anaphor occurs, together with the form of the anaphor itself, which determines the nature of a potential 'antecedent', and through this, the nature of the anaphoric relation which may be set up. It became clear in that chapter that the grammatical context of the anaphor always took priority over its morpho-syntactic form in determining a potential 'antecedent'; and this principle is clearly supported by the investigations of the present chapter. In the case of the strict-anaphoric variants of the anaphors concerned, it was apparent that the similarities between the English and French phenomena studied, as well as amongst the sub-classes of anaphora themselves, were more significant than their differences. In each case, it appeared that the relation between controller and anaphor did not involve a relation between arguments in functional structure, but rather one analogous to the binding of a variable by a logical operator (corresponding to the lambda or abstraction operator: the variable thereby bound is thus part of a derived predicate. Cf. also Bosch's (1983:120-22) treatment of what he calls 'syntactic agreement pronouns'). However, the latter analogy is only a gross (and hence somewhat misleading) approximation to the situation which actually obtains (cf. the discussion of reflexive and reciprocal pronouns in a range of European languages in Von Bremen, 1984). Brame (1983), as we saw in 3.1.2, makes a cogent case for viewing bound anaphora as a whole (in English, though his arguments carry over equally well to French) as a purely lexically-governed relation between a predicate and a (strict) anaphor, a relation which is established in two separate and 'local' stages: the strict anaphor's anaphoric features are first bound to its governing predicate's subject features, which then in turn bind the subject expression (where the governing predicate is a verb), via subject-verb agreement (which is itself a form of anaphoric binding). 78

'Strict' Nominal Anaphora Given that in Brame's system, lexical function words (verbs, certain nominals, adjectives and prepositions) select •head-selectors' rather than non-lexical, phrasal categories (which are inadmissable in Brame's theory), bound anaphora, including control relations (and, as I have argued, headrestrictive relative clause relations) will not involve a relation between NPs. Hence, in the case of complement 'subject' control, there is in fact no need to posit an abstract NP 'PRO' as subject of an S which a verb may select: instead, verbs taking infinitival complements simply select to, which automatically binds the control index of the complement verb chosen, in cases where the matrix verb has only a subject argument (e.g. try, begin). Control verbs with two arguments (of the types we saw in 3.1.2 and 3.2.2) would either be lexically specified for the head selectors DET and to, which would themselves by coindexed for control (i.e. verbs like persuade, whose 'Undergoer' argument, in Foley & Van Valin Jr.'s 1984 terms, is the controller), or the control index of the verb itself is coindexed with to (i.e. verbs whose 'Actor' argument is the controller, such as promise, threaten, as well as intransitive verbs such as try and

begin).

Such a theory would account for all of the properties of strict nominal anaphora which we have isolated in the present chapter: the fact that neither the anaphor nor the controller in each type of case is an argument; that an intensional rather than extensional (i.e. coreferential) semantic relation is established between the two elements; that the anaphor must be within the semantic scope of its controller, determined via its governing predicate, though the controller need not c-command the anaphor; that the lexica-semantic properties of the governing predicate (verb, derived nominal, adjective or preposition) as well as the tense/aspect, mood, modality and voice of the containing VP and/or clause determine both the choice of controller (where more than one candidate is potentially available) and the nature of its reference; that the controller is always locally co-occurrent; and that it tends to precede the anaphor. Strict nominal anaphora is thus a local, lexica-semantic predicational relationship, which has much in common with the ostensibly purely formal process of subject-verb agreement (see Chapter 6 for discussion of further similarities between types of agreement and of anaphora). With these findings in mind,let us turn to the subject of predicate and propositional anaphora, the topic of the next chapter.

79

'Strict'

Nomina~

Anaphora

NOTES 1. Certain non-lexical anaphors, however, may operate within either set: e.g. English it, this, that, &, and which, and French y_, ~' ~' cela, ~' and ~· 2. Thus the distinction between nominal it and non-nominal it in English is signalled primarily by the semantic-selection restriction imposed upon the pronoun by its governing verb, as in

&,

(i)a It is impossible, vs. b It is heavy, or(ii)a John believed it, vs. b John gave it to-Harry. Often, of course, aspects of the wider discourse context also serve to disambiguate the two uses. The same comments apply equally to this, that, 1!1 and which. In French, on the other hand, the invariability in number and gender of neuter le is a formal signal of the different type of anaphoric function which this-pronoun may perform, in contrast to the gender/number-marked le. In Chapter 6, we shall see that various types of concord phenomena in the-two languages are also sensitive to the distinction between nominal and non-nominal anaphora types. 3. Note that, formulated in this way, my definition of 'nominal' anaphora would appear to exclude noun and N anaphora, since nouns are semantically speaking predicates rather than potentially referring expressions. However, nouns may still denote (classes of) first-order entities; and the choice as to whether they will enter into a nominal or nonnominal anaphoric relation is, as I have argued above, dependent upon the type of anaphor used as well as upon its immediate lexico-grammatical· environment. Observe the effect of the choice between so and one as nonlexical anaphor in the following examples: --(i) John is a teacher, and by all accounts, a good one (ii) John is apparently a teacher. At least, he seems so. 4. Reinhart repeats her two 'domain conditions'as (1) and (2) of Chapter 9,p.l81, as follows: (1) Sentence-level semantic interpretation rules may operate on two given nodes A and B only if one of these nodes is in the domain of the other ••• (2) If a rule assigns node A some kind of prominence over node B, A must beaD [='domain']-head of the domain which contains B. Reinhart's claim is, then, that when a constituent is assigned the function of theme at the level of discourse, that constituent (i.e. A in condition (2)) is thereby assigned prominence over any non-thematic (i.e. rhematic) constituent (e.g. node Bin (2)). Condition (2) then states that constituent A must be the head of the c-command domain which contains node B. The head of a c-command domain is that node (or nodes) which c-command(s) every other node in the domain. However, she admits that there are instances where the theme constituent is not a D-head in relation to its rheme. Chomsky (1981:227, fn.45) likewise concedes that certain discourse factors may override what he claims are purely sentence-level semanticosyntactic rules, when he says that contexts may be found which render his example (25)ii, for instance, acceptable: (i) (C's (25)ii) John said that John would win,

80

'Stl•ict' Nominal Anaphora where his Binding Condition (C), reproduced below, rules a coreferential interpretation of the two underlined 'R' (i.e. Referential) expressions in the example ungrammatical: (12)

Binding Theory (A) An anaphor is bound in its governing category (B) A pronominal is free in its governing category (C) An R-expression is free (op.cit., p.l88).

The Binding Theory, specifying conditions on sentence-level wellformedness, is thus assumed to account for the unmarked norm in language use, with special discourse principles, such as the ones which Chomsky suggests in (iii) and (iv) of note 45 of Ch.3, accounting for certain marked 'deviations' from this norm in special contexts: (ii) (C's (iii)) (iii) (C's (iv))

Avoid repetition of R-expressions, except where conditions warrant; When conditions warrant, repeat.

These 'principles', however, are vacuous unless the special 'conditions' they refer to are defined in a principled way. Nevertheless, the general principle is clear (cf. also Leech, 1983:75). It must be said, however, that Reinhart (1983) takes discourse considerations into account much more centrally than does Chomsky (1981), even though both are working within some version of the Revised Extended Standard Theory of TG. 5. Chomsky's usage of the term 'anaphor' is extremely restrictive, since it covers only a small subset of the expressions which the term usually denotes. I shall continue to use the term 'anaphor' in its wider, and more customary sense, however, placing inverted commas around it when referring to Chomsky's usage. A further discrepancy with my terminology occurs when Chomsky uses the term 'lexical anaphor' (e.g. in 1981:188) to refer to reciprocal and reflexive pronouns. He is distinguishing here between these forms, on the one hand, and null 'anaphors' such as NP- and wh-trace, on the other. Chomsky also refers to the former sub-category as 'overt anaphors'. In my usage, on the contrary, the term 'lexical anaphor' refers to lexicallyheaded, non-grammatical anaphoric expressions, in contradistinction to grammatical ones (including null expressions). 6. Bach & Partee (1980:13-18) give numerous counterexamples to this claim,e.g. (58), repeated below as (i): (i) Every Englishman's mother loves him. Here Every Englishman does not c-command him (since it is dominated by the NP node which dominates mother, a node which~es not also dominate him), yet the indicated binding relation is permitted. Bach & Partee sugge~instead a purely semantic constraint on the bound-pronoun interpretation, namely: D'.

A QNP (=quantified NP) can bind only pronoun meanings within its semantic scope (1980:16).

7. Strictly speaking, PRO is not subject to the Binding rules, since it is ungoverned (the node !NFL of the 'clause' in which it may occur as subject not being a potential governor, in the GB-system, since the element AGR (the person and number agreement feature values) is only present when [Tense] is selected). Chomsky (1981:191) dubs it a 'pronominal anaphor', since it shares a characteristic of pronouns (or, more accurately, 'pronominals', in the GB system); namely, the requirement that it not be bound by an NP within its own 'clause' or NP; but it also shares a feature of 'anaphors': namely, that it is referentially dependent, having 'no intrinsic referential content' (op.cit.,p.l91). Thus, its interpretation is not determined by the Binding rules, but by separate principles of Control (which are not explicitly developed by Chomsky in the work in question).

81

'Strict' NominaL Anaphora B. Unlike the more salient of the two potential interpretations of this example (i.e. the incoherent one), the 'specific' reading of a car can only be available on the basis of prior context. That is, while the former interpretation does not require any special context, the latter clearly does. For Kempson, the double question mark prefixed to (19)b relates to the former, more salient of the two interpretations, and indicates its doubtful grammaticality as a sentence rather than incoherence as an utterance. See also Chapter 5 for further relevant discussion. 9. See Dik (198l:Ch.l) for an outline of Functional Grammar, and more particularly his sub-section 1.4.6, for an explanation of 'term' (i.e. argument) structure. See also the key of abbreviations used in the present work for the ones used in this representation. 10. In French, a terminological distinction is possible through the use of the terms reflechi for the form of the expression, and reflexif for its meaning (cf. Milner, 1982:43). 11. The primary reason for the gross ungrammaticality of (30)a is the fact that the complex preposition hors de has been treated as if it were not a single constituent, with only the preposition de governing the pronoun lui; the latter is thus illegitimately cliticised as-the oblique pronoun en.--12. Fauconnier actually says that the argument in question may trigger - that is, the deletion accompanied by automatic control of the clausal subject. His Control Principle should, however, be construed as an interpretive rule selecting the NP-argument to which the entire derived predicate is to be applied as a function.

~

13. She in fact develops the Determiner category in her system of Phrase Structure rules (op.cit. p.39) as including a Relative Clause Marker only, the sentence to be relativized being later embedded under this node by means of a Transformation. 14. In discussing the verb voler,Kleiber (op.cit.,p.221) comes close to recognizing the significance of grammatico-referential features (relating to VP and clause) as well as purely lexical ones, in determining the potential reference of arguments. Yet he neither explicitly recognises their significance, nor takes it into account in analyzing, or even constructing, his examples. 15. I have systematically varied in my examples (46)-(49) (which are based upon Kleiber's general argument) the type of matrix predicate, so as to determine its effect upon the nature of the reference of the subject NP. In Kleiber's examples, on the other hand, though the type of predicate within the relative clause varies, that of the matrix clause does not. Furthermore, in each group of examples, I have included a (c) variant in order to verify the independent effect of the matrix predicate upon the subject NP without the relative clause.

82

Chapter Four PREDICATE AND PROPOSITIONAL ANAPHORA

4.0

INTRODUCTION

In one sense, the distinction within the general category of non-nominal anaphora between 'predicate' and 'propositional' anaphora mirrors that which we saw in Chapter 3 between 'strict' and 'discourse' anaphora, within the nominal category. That is, while both predicate and strict-nominal anaphora involve an essentially grammatical, textual relation without presupposing a corresponding discourse referent (in Hankamer & Sag's 1976 terms, both these types would be instances of 'surface' anaphora), propositional and discourse-nominal anaphora are only loosely defined by lexico-grammatical features, having a more obviously pragmatic status and presupposing a corresponding discourse referent (both would be instances of 'deep' anaphora, in Hankamer & Sag's terminology). In Chapter 2, we saw how the grammatical structure of the predicative element of the anaphoric clause determined both the form and the anaphoric potential of the anaphor; and in Chapter 3, we observed a wide range of evidence which showed the extent to which it is the lexical properties of the predicative element governing the anaphor (or the constituent containing the anaphor) which constrain the selection of an 'antecedent' (i.e. a contextually appropriate interpretation for the anaphor). A further semantically-relevant property of governing predicative elements is the semantic selection restrictions imposed by such predicates upon the anaphor and the expression chosen as 'antecedent' alike, a basic condition for their being given an anaphoric interpretation being that both types of restriction be compatible, thus preserving discourse coherence. Reference and predication are,of course, interdependent and mutually-defining (ample evidence of this relationship was presented in the course of Chapter 3, in particular). Hence, since noun-headed NPs are constructed on the basis of 83

Predicate and

Propositiona~

Anaphora

an essentially predicative element (the head noun), it is not surprising to find that a predicate anaphoric relation may be set up between that head N (or N) and an appropriate predicate anaphor, or that an (indefinite) noun phrase functioning as a predicate nominal should enter into a relation of predicate anaphora with such an anaphor. 'Strict' nominal anaphora, as we saw in the previous chapter, is indeed both determined by and contributes to predicative relationships within the sentence. It is a symptom of the flexibility of language as an instrument of communication that the same elements can be used and interpreted either as referential or as predicative, according to the context in which they occur. Just as the type of nominalization chosen for a given predicative expression (in English 'derived', gerundive, or infinitival nominals, and in French, 'derived' or infinitival ones) will indicate the degree of saliency which the predicative element retains within the derived expression, so the use of certain sub-types of anaphor within a given context may highlight the nominal (referential) rather than predicative value of a given expression, or vice versa, even when the latter sustains the opposite type of interpretation within its immediate context. We have already seen a number of examples of such phenomena, in 2.3 in particular, and will be examining further such examples in the present chapter. In this chapter, then, I shall first examine certain types of English predicate and propositional anaphora, and will then compare them with their French counterparts. 4.1

ENGLISH PREDICATE AND PROPOSITIONAL ANAPHORA

Although in Chapter 2 (section 2.1) I chose the morphosyntactic parameter as one way of classifying anaphoric relations, the overwhelming weight of evidence suggests instead that it is the semantic-pragmatic parameter which most fully determines the nature of any given anaphoric relation. This view was borne out throughout the investigation in Chapter 3 of certain types of 'strict' nominal anaphora; and indeed, on p.36 I defined the term 'nominal', in the sense of the opposition between nominal and predicate anaphora, as 'functioning semantically in determining a 'first-order' referent' (cf. Lyons, 1977, and note 8 of Chapter 2), whether it be an instantiation of an entity (individual or generic) in the case of discourse nominal or propositional anaphora, or the intension of such an entity in the case of 'strict' nominal anaphora. On p. 34, I suggested that the range of non-lexical anaphors in English and French could be divided into two distinct sets, depending on whether they were able to participate in a nominal or a predicate anaphoric relation; however, there was a 84

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora residual set of such anaphors which were susceptible of use in either main type of relation (cf. note 1 to Chapter 3, p. 80). Nevertheless, the lexico-grammatical context in which members of the latter set occur in any instance will invariably determine their potential type of anaphoric function (cf. note 2 to Chapter 3, p. 80). In the case of non-nominal anaphora, it is similarly misleading to distinguish, as is the most frequent practice in the relevant literature, amongst V, VP (or AP, PP,etc.), Sand Sentence anaphora (cf., for example, Koster, 1979): again, it is not the internal morpho-syntactic constituency of the putative 'antecedent' expression which is the determining factor for anaphora, but rather the logico-grammatical function which that expression is performing within its immediate context, or which the type of anaphor chosen is able, retrospectively, to superimpose upon it. Hence, I have chosen instead the terms 'predicate' and 'propositional' anaphora for these non-nominal types. Note that the basic semantic function of the Sentence, like that of the Verb Phrase, Adjective Phrase or Prepositional Phrase, is more predicative than referential: although it is said to 'express' a proposition, it clearly does not refer to one. In Oim's (1973) terms, sentences, and predicative structures in general, are essentially "instructions for the hearer to modify his knowledge of the world in de.finite points and in definite ways" (1973:363). That is, they are communicatively dynamic expressions, in contrast to referring expressions, which serve to establish the stable framework of information in terms of which the knowledge-changing operation specified by the predication may be carried out. Once this type of knowledge-changing operation has been carried out by the addressee, a predicate anaphoric relation may be established (e.g. by means of the predicate anaphor so) in order to maintain the application of the particular predication within the universe of discourse in question; or alternatively, a propositional anaphoric relation may be set up (e.g. by means of it or that), whereby the anaphor refers to the result of the predication in question rather than to the predication itself; that is, it refers to a proposition (Peterson 1982 stresses the need to distinguish between (anaphoric) reference to propositions, on the one hand, and to events and facts, on the other). Clauses (i.e. S constituents), on the other hand, may perform either a predicative or a referential function, depending on the lexico-grammatical context in which they occur: in (l)b 1 and (2)c,d below, for example, the italicized segments are predicative; while in (l)a and (2)a, they are referential, occurring as they do in argument positions. 85

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora (l)a b

To refuse to attend the meeting would be impolite The candidates all wanted to refuse to attend the meeting

(2)a John's refusing to attend the meeting cost him dearly b *John's refusing to attend the meeting, we had to leave two important items for the following one c John refusing to attend the meeting, we had to leave two important items for the following one d [Refusing to attend the meeting]i,Johni found himself isolated. Semantically, then, sentences have more in common with verb- and adjective-phrases, while clauses may pattern more closely with noun phrases. Indeed, clauses in argument positions are NPs (in terms of their external distribution). Given these parallels, then, I shall not be discussing so-called 'sentence' anaphora, nor indeed 'predicative' clauses, under the heading of propositional anaphora, but rather under that of predicate anaphora. 4.1.1 Predicate anaphora A distinction is commonly drawn in the literature between types of anaphora which are more centrally defined in terms of their immediate linguistic context, and types that are created more obviously in terms of the wider discourse context - including the context-of-utterance. 2 I have indeed been adopting this distinction in the discussion of the types of 'strict' nominal anaphora in Chapter 3. As far as predicate anaphora is concerned, the distinction can be illustrated as follows: (3)a b

Jim can peel potatoes better than San can

¢

Jim peeled potatoes all morning, and Sam did so too.

In Crymes's (1968:35) terms, the modal auxiliary can in examples like (3)a is a 'representer', or 'secondary substitute', in that it may also occur within the construction which it 'represents' (i.e • ..••• better than Sam can peel potatoes). As a phrase-introducer (or -specifier), the auxiliary performs a grammatical function which is analogous to that performed by the determiner within the noun phrase: indeed, determiners other than the articles may likewise signal anaphora, where their head N's are ellipsed (e.g. in ... but the customers preferred Johnujhis/the other('s) ¢- cf. Schachter, 1978). It is this grammatical incompleteness, overtly manifested by the lack of stress reduction normally undergone by such forms when they are pro-clitic, which enables this type of expression to function anaphorically (or more precisely, indexically, the anaphoric function being derivative upon the indexical). Hence, all such ellipsis-signalling expressions impose the constraint 86

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora upon their interpretation that this be effected in terms of some co-occurring fully-specified expression having an equivalent surface grammatical status. This category must evidently also include stranded infinitival to, which Pullum (1982), indeed (as pointed out in note 1), analyses as a non-finite auxiliary verb: (4)

Jim can peel potatoes, but just now he doesn't want to

¢.

In (3)b, on the terms, the predicate substitute', in that in terms of which it

other hand, still using Crymes's (1968) anaphor do so is a 'replacer', or 'primary; it could not occur within the expression is interpreted (i.e . .•. *did so peel potatoes all morning). The difference between the two types of anaphor thus seems to be that whereas 'representers' are lexical categories containing grammatical morphemes, 'replacers' are phrasal categories, a status which allows them a degree of referential independence, enabling them to refer either deictically or anaphorically (so and do so appear to be exceptions to this generalisation, in that they are by and large restricted to the anaphoric function). 4 .1.1.1

ELLIPSIS

I follow Schachter (1978) here in viewing elliptical predicates as expressions possessing referential properties in their own right, rather than being entirely determined by a copy of some fully-specified predicate which is either deleted from some underlying level of structure, as in the classical Transformational account, or instantiated via a copying mechanism, as in Jackendoff's (1972) Interpretive-Semantic approach. Elliptical predicates are those which consist of a stranded auxiliary (do if there is no modal auxiliary, have or be), of a member of the same category of expressions preceded by so in other than the comparative construction illustrated in (3)a, or, if non-finite, of to. 3 These stranded auxiliaries (including infinitival to in this category, following Pullum's 1982 analysis) fulfil two functions: to indicate that ellipsis has taken place in their environment, through the fact that they are 'stranded' and may not be reduced in stress or contracted; and to signal that the ellipsed element is a predicate. Unlike the category of 'replacers' (do so, do it, do that, it, so, which), 'representers' are not themselves anaphors, but rather signals of the existence of a certain type of anaphora in their immediate environment. The actual anaphor here is the 'null' anaphor, zero. Predicate ellipsis, according to both Sag (1976) and Webber (1979), is an anaphoric relation depending upon identity of predication between an 'ellipsis trigger' (in Webber's 1979: Ch.4, fn.6,p.3 terms) 4 and an ellipsed VP, rather than upon 87

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora mere identity of surface form. The 'surface anaphora' status of the phenomenon (a status reaffirmed in Sag & Hankamer, 1984, where this class of anaphora is re-named simply 'ellipsis') is reflected in the following properties, agreed upon by the authors in question: 1. The ellipsed predicate is invariably signalled in surface structure by a predicate-introducer: an auxiliary verb or infinitival to. This means that certain syntactic constraints regarding surface form are automatically placed on any predicate capable of acting as its 'ellipsis trigger'. 2. The antecedent-trigger may either be in the same sentence as the ellipsed VP, so long as it does not contain it (according to Webber, 1979: 4-27), or in the immediately preceding one. It is unlikely that the antecedent-trigger would be in an even earlier sentence, due to the rapid fading of memory of surfacesyntactic representation, on which VP ellipsis is partially dependent (cf. Sag & Hankamer, 1984:341). 3. The antecedent-trigger may follow the ellipsed VP (so long as the latter does not c-command it) - yet if it does, it must apparently occur within the same sentence. Contrary to Webber, ibid. Ch.4,p.28, I find that instances where the ellipsed VP precedes and c-commands its antecedent-trigger are worse than cases where the (preceding and) c-commanding anaphor is referential. That is, of Wasow's (1979b:82) examples of violations of the earlier 'precede-and-command' constraint on anaphora, I find the ellipsis examples (7) and (8) significantly worse than those involving overt (and arguably, referential) anaphora, viz. (5) and (6): (5) (6) (7) (8)

(W's l(d),Ch.5) *He dropped out after John tried LSD (W's 4(d),Ch.5) *John believes it although no-one else believes that Bill takes LSD (W's 2(d),Ch.5) *John did~ after Bill tried LSD (W's 6(d),Ch.5) *I don't know why~. although John

takes LSD

(The status assignment in (5)-(8) is Wasow's). Bosch (1983), correctly in my view, reserves the c-command constraint for what he calls 'syntactic agreement pronouns', where 'anaphora proper' (i.e. essentially a referential relation, according to Bosch) between antecedent-trigger and anaphor is not involved; syntactic agreement pronouns are involved in a relation of bound anaphora with antecedenttriggers, the nature of whose reference is irrelevant. The c-command constraint, involving a purely structural configuration of nodes, would not constrain the interpretation of what Bosch calls 'referential anaphoric pronouns', but rather a translation of this into semantic function-argument terms, 88

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora reflecting the more clearly semantic-pragmatic nature of 'anaphora proper'. The fact that, contra Webber (1979), instances of VP ellipsis where the ellipsed VP c-commands its putative antecedent-trigger are significantly less natural than instances where the c-commanding anaphor is referential, is evidence that VP ellipsis has more to do with surface textual cohesion than with deeper discourse coherence. We can therefore generalize Bosch's interpretation of the c-command constraint as being relevant only to the functioning of 'syntactic agreement pronouns', to encompass textually-cohesive anaphora in general, including VP ellipsis. Elliptical VPs, where they c-command their putative antecedent-triggers, do not have the required degree of independent reference potential to 'violate' the constraint and link up textually and interpretatively with a co-occurring fully-specified VP. 4. A further factor reflecting the relatively low degree of independent reference potential of VP ellipsis is its apparent resistance to 'pragmatic control' (cf. Hankamer & Sag, 1976, Sag & Hankamer, 1984). Hankamer (1978), for example, provides the following contrast: (9)

(H's (15)) [Harry Houdini, before an audience of thousands, manages to effect his escape from a locked safe dangling under a blimp:] Spectator A to spectator B: a.

He did it.

But not: b. #He did

¢5 •

Uttered with a neutral or unmarked intonation contour, (9)b is infelicitous or incoherent in relation to the context-of-utterance specified, whereas (9)a, under the same conditions, results in complete coherence. Though Hankamer does not mention this (he does not in fact discuss prosodic factors at all in the article in question), (9)b would be coherent if uttered with a fall-rise tone: this would then be contrastive with a presupposed denial, for example, on Spectator B's part that Houdini would in fact succeed in escaping from the safe. This need not necessarily be the case, however, with (9)a, if uttered with the same tone. The point is that, under such conditions, a specific predication would be presupposed by the utterance of (9)b, thereby rendering it coherent with its context, which would then be correspondingly richer and more determinate than would be the case if (9)b were uttered with a neutral tone in the context as specified. Hankamer (1978:70) (cf. also Hankamer & Sag, 1976: 409,fn.l9) suggests that it is when the clause is a statement or a direct request for information (i.e. the utterance has to do with the straightforward transmission of information) that the predicate may not be ellipsed rather than realized as an overt predicate anaphor (as 89

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora in (9)a). Where the illocutionary force of the clause is such as to involve the addressee in an essential way (as in exhortations, commands, pleas, warnings, certain exclamations and polite formulas- cf. Hankamer, 1978: 70), then it may either be realized as an elliptical VP or an overt predicate anaphor. Tasmowski-de Ryck & Verluyten (1982) provide what may be viewed as a parallel example from French in the field of NPs operating under pragmatic control: they point out that, whereas (lO)a is felicitous in the context indicated, (lO)b, where elle is interpreted as 'la charite' ('charity' (fem,sing)), is evidently not: (10)

(TDR & V's (22)) [A sees someone giving a large bill to a beggar:] a. Que la charite est belle! ('How beautiful charity is!') b. (TDR & V's (23)) [same context] #Qu'elle est belle! ('How beautiful it (fem,sing) is!')

The message conveyed by the English gloss of (lO)b would instead have to be encoded by means of (lO)c: (lO)c

Que c'est beau!

I shall be pursuing this parallel in Chapter 5. The main claim which VP ellipsis seems to have for being included in the category of 'discourse anaphora' (by, e.g., Williams, 1977, and Webber, 1979) is that the ellipsis trigger and the ellipsed VP may occur in separate (though necessarily adjacent) sentences, which may be realized as utterances spoken by different speakers. It is therefore not (necessarily) a sentence-internal phenomenon. The factors listed in 1 to 4, however, suggest rather that it is at least intermediate between fully discourse-anaphoric exponents and clearly strict-anaphoric ones, even if it is not a clear case of strict anaphora itself. Though these purely formal-syntactic properties of VP ellipsis tend to suggest that it is an instance of 'strict' anaphora, there are a number of further properties which show its sensitivity to discourse-semantic factors. One such property is the ability to exhibit so-called 'sloppy identity' readings (cf. Ross, 1967), where the antecedent-trigger contains a pronoun anaphoric to that predicate's subject, thereby potentially creating an ambiguity in the interpretation of the elliptical predicate where none is apparent in the antecedenttrigger. An example is (11): (11) John cherishes his Rolls Royce, and Jack does

¢

too.

The two available readings of the elliptical predicate are: 90

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora 'cherishes John's Rolls Royce', where the pronoun within the antecedent-trigger is interpreted as a referential anaphor, and 'cherishes his own (i.e. Jack's) Rolls Royce', where the same pronoun is construed as a bound variable, or 'syntactic agreement' pronoun, in Bosch's (1983) terms. This ambiguity is not apparent in the antecedent-trigger predicate, since the two interpretations are truth-functionally equivalent in the context of this predication. Clearly, this is a difference in the logical predicate which the elliptical VP selects as its 'ellipsis trigger', and cannot be a function of morpho-syntax (the surface-structure of both 'antecedent' and elliptical VP rema1n1ng constant). In this example, then, there are potentially two 'ellipsis-triggers', in Webber's(l97~ terminology, which are made available within a single 'antecedent-trigger', in my terms. The possibility or likelihood of a bound-variable in addition to a coreferential reading of the pronoun in the antecedent-trigger VP is evidently lexically determined as a function of the verb selected, and may also be imposed by the wider context. (12)a and b, respectively, illustrate both of these possibilities: (12)a b

Geoffrey lost his cool, and so did Jane

~.

"The Israelis warned that if the Syrians won't withdraw their troops, they won't¢, either" (BBC 2 News, 15.5.83).

Construing his as referential in (12)a destroys the idiom by changing the predicate ('became angry'), and in any case would result in incoherence; and in (12)b, interpreting their as a constant results in complete incoherence. (12)a also shows that the interpretation of the elliptical predicate does not (necessarily) take place via a reinstatement of the antecedenttrigger VP in its morpho-syntactic form, since here there would be a gender clash in the pronoun selected in each case (i.e. *Jane lost his cool)(cf. also Webber, 1979, Bosch, 1983). This contradicts what is implied in Schachter (1978:200). In (12)b, which is pragmatically rather than semantically determined (as is the case in (12)a), the sloppy-identity reading of the elliptical VP is subject to cancellation or supersession by further contextual factors. Webber (1979) gives further examples where a 'logical predicate ellipsis trigger' is made available contextually through inference, thus allowing the control of an elliptical VP: (13)

(W's (7), Ch.4) Mary is going to Spain and Fred is going to Australia, but neither of them will ¢, if there's a recession. ¢ = 'go to the place he or she is planning to go to' 91

Predicate and PPopositional Anaphora (14)

(W's (8), Ch.4) Irv and Mary want to dance together, but Mary can't ¢, since her husband is there. ¢ = 'dance with Irv'

(15)a b

(W' s ( 6 2) a , Ch • 5) (W' s (62)b, Ch. 5)

same time.

I can walk and I can chew gum. Gerry can ¢ too, but not at the

¢ = 'walk and chew gum'. (16)

(W's (70), Ch.5) China is a country that Joe wants to visit, and he will ¢ too, if he gets an invitation there soon. ¢ = 'visit China'.

All these 'ellipsis triggers', while not syntactically present in their respective antecedent clauses, are nevertheless made available by implication: i.e. in (13), 'if x intends to go to y (y a country) and z intends to go tow (w a country), then x & z (each intend to (go to country y and country w, respectively))'. Of the inner and outer of the two predicates thus made available for anaphora, only the inner one is contextually coherent with the predicate anaphor will ¢ in the third clause of (13). Similarly, in (14), 'if x andy want to dance together, then x (wants to dance with y) & y (wants to dance with x)'. Either predicate is available for anaphoric reference, and the selection of Mary in the anaphoric clause in turn selects the predicate which is predicated of x, i.e. Mary. In (15), a derived predicate may be created by implication from the conjoined clauses in (a), since both subjects and auxiliaries are identical, yielding '(walk and chew gum)'. In (16), 'if there is an x such that xis a country and that y (Joe) wants to visit X and x is China, then y wants to visit x, i.e. China'. Again, by the coherence constraint, only the predicate 'visit China' (rather than the predicate 'want to visit China') is selected by the predicate anaphor in the anaphoric clause, when integrated discoursally with its 'antecedent' clause. In all these examples, including the sloppy-identity ones, it is the anaphor which, in context, triggers the creation of the derived predicate which acts as its 'ellipsis trigger' (i.e. the interpretation of the ellipsed VP involves a 'twoway' or bi-directional relationship between anaphor and 'ellipsis trigger'). Such a view of these examples would indeed entail attributing a dynamic, as opposed to static, role to VP ellipsis, as Webber, (1979:Ch.4,p.4) suggests. The coherence constraint upon discourse interpretation governs the selection of one out of several candidate 'ellipsis triggers' (the expression 'ellipsis controllers' might be a better term for these) triggered by the predicate anaphor. A general feature of anaphora requires that the interpretation of the 92

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora antecedent-trigger remain constant in that of the anaphor, so that, for example, whichever of the two possible interpretations of the antecedent-trigger in cases of 'sloppy identity' is chosen, the same must be assigned to the anaphor if discourse coherence is to be maintained. Yet another property of VP ellipsis, also noted by Wasow (1979b) and Webber (1979), concerns the fact that the negation operator (as well as other modal, tense and aspect operators) must be outside of the 'ellipsistrigger' which is within its scope, and is thus not included in the interpretation of an elliptical predicate. The modality of the latter is, indeed, provided by its stranded auxiliary, which, if finite, may carry independent negation, tense, aspect and modal values: (17)

"My cooking may not be as good as his mother's. But at least my kitchen is ¢" (Caption beneath photograph of young woman in newlybuilt house: advertisement for 'Wimpey Homes').

Here, the positive polarity of the anaphoric clause is further underlined by the discourse articulators but and at least. Note also that the principle of discourse coherence requires the 'ellipsis-trigger' predicate to be 'as good as his mother's kitchen', rather than 'as good as his mother's cooking', which is, again, a 'dynamically' derived 'antecedent' predicate. Another (attested) example is (18): (18)

" •.• They don't appear to be actually doing anything, yet in fact they obviously are ¢" (Artist in "Arena", BBC 2, 5.4.78).

The fact that the 'ellipsis trigger' here is 'doing something' rather than 'doing anything' is analogous to the irrelevance of gender for the 'ellipsis trigger' under the bound-variable reading of (12)a. Two final examples of VP ellips'is (also attested) are given in (19) and (20): (19)

" ..• Facism could make headway in Britain, but it isn't¢; and it will take more than an economic failure to bring about such an unhappy state of affairs" (Letter to The Guardian, 9.15.83,p.l2).

(20)

"'I can make a picture out of your worst book', Howard Hawks bragged to Hemingway while fishing. And he did ¢, though it's hardly a close adaptation: the plot's shrunk, the locale's changed to suit the Second World War, and a guardian angel called Casablanca hovers overhead .• " ("To Have And To Have Not", Radio Times 9-15.6.84, p.l4.) 93

Predicate and Prvpositional Anaphora (19) shows that aspect, although it is the most closely associated with the verb of the predicate operators Tense and Modality (including predicate negation), may be independently selected by the elliptical VP (though this is a somewhat marked option). This follows from our present discoursesemantic approach, and is in contradiction with Schachter's (1978:200) claim (relating to a very similar (invented) example) that it is ungrammatical as impossible to handle by his system, which is apparently (though Schachter is not explicit about this) based upon the morpho-syntactic copying of the antecedent predicate into the position following the stranded auxiliary (namely, Schachter's(iii), fn.lS: John hasn't told lies~ but Bill is¢. It is, of course, possible to argue that (19) is simply ungrammatical as it stands - but the language does appear to be changing in this respect). (20) is an attested example of the phenomenon of 'missing antecedents' discussed by Grinder & Postal (1971). Though the predicate contained in the antecedent-trigger in the first clause of (20) clearly refers to a hypothetical situation, where your worst book is non-referential, the 'ellipsis trigger' for the elliptical predicate in the third clause, respecting discourse coherence, must refer (via its simple past tense/aspect) to an actualized situation, where 'the addressee Hemingway's worst book' denotes a particular book (namely To Have and To Have Not, which is indicated in the title of the article in question); this is evidently a discourse-based inference. In turn, this interpretation provides a reference for the definite pronoun it in the subsequent clause, which finally confirms the interpretation of the elliptical predicate which was a prerequisite for that of the pronoun (cf. also the point made by Webber, 1979: Ch.4,p.36 in this respect). 4 • 1. 1. 2 SO AND DO SO The predicate anaphor so may be anaphoric to adjective phrases, prepositional phrases, predicate nominals, head-noun groups (i.e. N's), as well as to sentences and clauses, so long as the latter are construed predicatively. In its anaphoric usage, it is probably best analysed as an adverbial, which is why it cannot occur in argument positions or refer deictically (unlike it, this and that). Examples (both attested) of its predicateanaphoric function are (21) and (22) below:

(21)

" •.. some of the soldiers [on the Dunkirk beaches] themselves told me they were starving, and exhausted, and unorganised, and very frightened. I would have been so too". (Letter to Radio Times, 2.6-4.7.80,p.69).

In similar fashion to the elliptical predicate in (lS)b, so here triggers the creation of the derived logical predicate 94

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora 1

A(x) (Starving & Exhausted & Unorganised & Very Frightened,x)'.

(22)

" ••. Kent is a wealthy county and has been so all through history" (Kent, by P. Hughes, Shellmex & BP, 1969, p.9).

Here, the 'antecedent' may be the entire predicate of the first conjunct ('A(x)(Wealthy county,x)'),or (perhaps more saliently) the predicate corresponding to its attributive adjective ('A(x)(Wealthy,x)'). Syntactically, the antecedent-triggers of the occurrences of so in (2l)and (22) are A and NP (or A), respectively. An example where the antecedent-trigger is an S is given in (23): (23)

A: The insurance expires this month, doesn't it? B: a. I think so, but I'll go and check b. #I think it, but I'll go and check.

Clearly, neither in the antecedent-trigger clause, nor in the anaphoric clause does the proposition expressed have a truth value assigned to it by the speaker: in the antecedent-trigger sentence, this is because the whole point of the containing utterance is to ask the addressee to assign it a truth value, on the basis of his or her assumed knowledge of the corresponding state of affairs in the 'world' in question; and in the anaphoric sentence, it is because the addressee wishes not to commit himself to such an assertion, by using a 'parenthetical' verb, or 'verb of hedging' (Lysvgg, 1975). Thus, the focus in both the antecedent-trigger and the anaphoric clause is upon the intension, rather than extension ((asserted) truth value) of the proposition 'the insurance expires this month'. Other verbs which may or must be used in this sense are believe,

guess, expect, hope, fear, be afraid, seem, appear, imagine, suppose and assume. Where the pronoun it is used as direct object of a sub-set of these verbs (viz. believe, guess, expect, fear, be afraid of, seem, imagine and assume), the

verb has a different sense, namely its 'full' sense as a verb of assertion, the referent of the pronoun being the negative or positive truth value of the proposition in question, i.e. an extension. Apart from the verbs hope and be afraid in this (nonexhaustive) list, the majority of these occur in Hooper's (1975: 92) Table 1 under the rubric 'Nonfactive Weak Assertive' predicates; hope and be afraid, however, both occur in this Table under the rubric 'Nonfactive, Strong Assertive'. Hooper herself (1975: fn 10,p.l08) draws attention to these two exceptions, pointing out that they differ semantically from the other strong assertive predicates in "expressing a desire [or, more generally, an emotional stance - FC] concerning the truth of the complement proposition. Hope expresses a desire for the 95

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora truth value to be positive, while afraid expresses a wish [rather, a fear -FC] that it be negative." Under the so-called 'parenthetical' reading of the verbs listed on the previous page, it is these verbs' sentential complement which is asserted, rather than the main clause itself. In such a role, the verbs in question have only an attenuated semantic value which simply serves to "weaken the claim to truth made by the complement" (ibid., p.lOl). So yet again, we have to do with a case where the choice of one type of pronominal anaphor rather than another signals a particular kind of interpretation both of its governing predicate and of its antecedent-trigger. This is exactly what we noticed throughout the examination of 'strict' nominal anaphora in Chapter 3, particularly insofar as predicates constructed with infinitival or participial complements were concerned (cf. 3.1.2 and 3.2.2). Lysv&g (1975) provides a particularly telling minimal pair of examples, involving

believe:

(24)a (L's (6)) Do you think you can come tonight? { so}{I don't believe so{ I believe{#it}{I believe not } b (L's (7)) People believe what they read in the paper,

!

but I don't believet#~~J(FC)J t#but I believe not ~

(NB. I have replaced the asterisks which Lysv&g prefixes to the unacceptable alternatives with the crosshatch, which they more properly merit) . .cushing (1972:186-7) writes of the 'indefiniteness' of so (in its anaphoric use) in parallel with that of nominal one, in opposition to the definiteness of it in both its propositional and nominal anaphoric roles. That is, the referent of anaphoric so is an unasserted, unpresupposed proposition, whereas that of propositional it is either an asserted or a presupposed proposition - that is, one whose truth value in some particular world (i.e. extension) can be taken as established within the universe-of-discourse concerned. This approaches my own view (cf. p. 95 above) that so is essentially a predicate anaphor - an unasserted, unpresupposed proposition expressed by a sentence having an intensional, predicative status, in the same way that ordinary predicates do (as in the case of the antecedent-triggers for the instances of so in examples like (21) and (22)). Analogously, indefinite NPs may either be construed referentially or (perhaps more naturally) predicatively (cf., for example, the analysis of indefinite NPs in Fodor & Sag, 1982). 96

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora This may explain Bolinger's (1970) somewhat impressionistic characterisation of the difference in meaning between the predicate anaphors do so and do it in terms of the 'adverse' or 'unfavourable' connotations associated with the use of so in contrast with the neutral, or objective connotation of it. Bolinger claims (p.l41) that the "literal pronominal value [of so] is something like 'it as represented'", and (p.l42) that "'imposing a condition' is a proper setting for do so". These properties are indeed predictable, given the intensional interpretation which anaphoric so requires of its 'antecedent'.

Do so is usually analysed as a non-stative predicate anaphor, due to the fact that its head element is the full verb do, itself an activity predicate: (25)

#John knows the answer to that question, and Bill does so too.

However, unlike its counterpart do it, do so entails no clear agentive interpretation of its subject expression, and as a consequence, bears no implication that the process or activity it denotes has been (or could be) accomplished. A subtle contrast between the types of interpretation partially induced by the choice of do so or of do it as predicate anaphor is provided by Crymes (1968): (26)a b (27)a

b

(C's (68)a) That tree is going to fall some day. I hope it doesn't do it while we're here.

(C's (68)b) When the tree fell, it did so with a loud crash. (C's (69)a) The car is jerking and wheezing as it's never done before. I wonder why it has to do it on this particular trip. (C's (69)b) The car jerked and wheezed all through the trip, and it did so in spite of Jim's careful attention to it.

Now clearly, the use of do so in both (26)a and (27)a would yield a somewhat bizarre discourse, while that of do it in (26)b and (27)b would produce a more obviously marked (i.e. slightly incoherent) one. Crymes attempts to explain this contrast by saying that the 'non-activity' verbs hope and wonder in (26)a and (27)a, respectively, "mark the only animate subjects in these utterances as non-actors who perceive the inanimate subjects as actors", whereas in both (26)b and (27)b "there are no animate subjects to have such perceptions" (1968:66). However, the reason is surely, rather, that the progressive aspect of the verbs of which the inanimate NPs 97

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora (whose pronominal coreferential reflexes function as subject of the corresponding anaphoric clauses) act as subject in the first pair of examples, strongly suggest an agentive interpretation of the referent of the linked expressions, in a way that the simple aspect of the verbs in the latter pair of examples does not. The important point is that it is the combination of the interpretations of the two clauses, in the manner suggested by the anaphoric expressions occurring in the second clause of each pair, and relative to a particular context of utterance, which results in the coherence or incoherence of the discourse constituted by that combination. This property of indefiniteness and lack of specificity attaching to so within do so renders it particularly suitable for acting as anaphor to generic predications, such as are commonly made in formal, abstract discourse. (28) is an example: (28)

" •.• they (sc. "DECLARATIONS") are performed, normally speaking, by someone who is especially authorized to do so within some institutional framework" (Leech, 1983, p.l06).

Note that although the antecedent-trigger predication is predicating the performance of a particular type of illucutionary act, it is the process of performance, conceived generically, rather than the accomplishment of the performance, which is in focus in both the antecedent-trigger and the anaphoric clause.

Do so~ like elliptical predicates, but unlike do readily allows 'sloppy-identity' readings: (29)

it~

!did so {

John kissed his wife, and then Bill tdid it j•

Characteristically, the most natural interpretation of the variant with do so here is in terms of the intensional, derived predicate 'Bill, A(x) (kiss x's wife,x)', though it may also be interpreted in terms of the predicate containing a referential constant, 'kissed John's wife'. Conversely, but again characteristically, the variant with do it has as its most immediate interpretation the more referentially transparent of the two readings, namely, 'kissed John's wife' (the other more 'intensional' interpretation is not impossible here, as indeed Crymes (1968:68) points out when she says: "do it may, under certain circumstances, signal 'same kind of event'", a type of interpretation in the signalling of which the predicate anaphor do that is specialised).

98

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora 4 .1. 1. 3

IT I AND DO IT

It 3 as I have suggested (cf. p. 96 ), is normally restricted to

referring to propositions whose truth value is accepted within a particular universe of discourse; that is, it has an extensional rather than intensional anaphoric value. However, it can act as a predicate anaphor, as in the following examples: (30)a

John isn't usually worried, but today he certainly looks! itl.

b'sd

b

A: Corsica is a magnificent island.

B: Well, judging from this travel brochure, it certainly sounds! ?itl.

L so}

The verbs look and sound in (30)a and b, respectively, are both· members of the sub-class of 'sensory-state' verbs which, as Crymes (1968:82) indicates, tend to govern the pronoun it rather than so as a predicate anaphor. Though neither verb may take a sentential complement, they both occur attributively (e.g.That

book looks interesting; Corsica sounds delightful).

However, these environments are exceptional for it; and indeed, there is no potential choice between it and so here, conditioning a difference in sense within the governing predicates, as there was in the case of the verbs belieVe 3 guess3 expect, etc., seen in 4.1.1.2 (cf. the contrasts in (24)a,b). I shall be examining instances of it functioning as a propositional anaphor in the next sub-sectiont

Do it 3 like do so, is a non-stative, or activity predicate anaphor. However, it differs from do so in that it assigns to its 'antecedent'predicates the interpretation 'performance accomplished, or accomplishable'. That is it conveys a telic aspectual value, with, in addition, the implication that its subject (and hence, the subject of its 'antecedent' predicate) is agentive with respect to the activity .denoted by the verb. Neither of these semantic values is necessarily conveyed by do so. All of these properties of the two predicate anaphors in question are predictable from what we have established so faT of each of their constituent morphemes. Attested examples illustrating these properties in the case of do it are given below: (3l)a

" ... it's very easy to smuggle a note out of prison. Reggie Kray has just managed to do it from high security Parkhurst prison. All he did was pop it in the letter box ... " (Observer, 17.6.84, p.l6). 99

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora b

"The Americans have developed a new method of shooting down intercontinental ballistic missiles in space: they did it on Sunday." (BBC Radio 4, Today Programme, 12.6.84)

c

"Shilton has made more saves this season than any other goalkeeper, and he's doing it again now." (lTV, 28.5.80).

d

"Roy Jenkins almost does it!" (Headline on front page of The Daily Mail, 17.7.81).

According to Comrie's (1976:44) test of telic situations, the antecedent-trigger clauses in (3l)a and d are both telic (cf. X is smuggling a note out of prison does not entail X has

smuggled a note out of prison~ X is winning the Warrington bye-election 6 does not entail X has won the Warrington byeelection), while those in (3l)b and care not. The NP objects

within the antecedent-trigger predicates in the latter two examples are both plural indefinites, a situation which precludes an interpretation whereby the actions described by the VPs in question might be brought to a "well-defined terminal point" (Comrie, 1976:45). Comrie's insistance that it is not verbs as such which are telic or atelic, but whole predications, verbal aspec~ tense and mood all contributing to their 'telicity', is well taken. Moreover, specific contexts may superimpose a telic or atelic value on the predication which is contrary to that suggested by its linguistic content, thereby cancelling its unmarked, or preferred type of interpretation. In none of the examples (3l)a-d is the antecedent-trigger predication asserted: in (3l)a, though telic, it is a generic predication, and the anaphoric clause asserts the achievement of the action in question by a particular individual at a particular time and place. The telicity of the latter clause is strongly reinforced by the present-perfect tense/phase of its main verb, the advert just, and the choice of main verb itself (manage). The particular accomplishment involved is further confirmed by the use in the subsequent sentence of the pronoun it, whose most likely referent is 'the note which Reggie Kray managed to smuggle out of high security Parkhurst prison at some particular time'. In (3l)b, the matrix clause containing the antecedenttrigger of do it is telic, though its embedded clause, as we have seen, is not. In spite of this, however, the anaphoric clause is clearly telic, since the predicate anaphor do it has been selected, as well as the definite simple past tense/aspect, and the particularizing time adverbial on Sunday. 100

PPedicate and Propositional Anaphora In (3l)c, though the predicate anaphor occurs in the progressive aspect and present tense, the predication in the anaphoric clause clearly refers to a specific, space/time-bound situation; and although the perspective imposed upon this situation is an imperfective one, the antecedent-trigger in terms of which do it is interpreted clearly denotes a telic situation (namely 'make a save'), due to the choice of do it as predicate anaphor. The antecedent-trigger for does it in (3l)d is a proposition whose inference is triggered by means of the predicate anaphor from within the universe of discourse built up between the newspaper and its readers over the weeks preceding this edition. This is the former's daily reporting of the campaign for the bye-election at Warrington, of which the overriding interest for this pro-Conservative newspaper and its readership was evidently whether Roy Jenkins, the SDP candidate, would win what was widely regarded as a safe Labour seat (the Conservative candidate having little chance of winning it). The saliency of this proposition within this context is what makes do it able to trigger its 'antecedent' predicate ('win the Warrington bye-election'). This predication is clearly telic. Note that do so would not be able to sustain this kind of interpretation in the same context, due partly to the fact that it is unmarked for telicity, and also to the fact that it is semantically indefinite and lacking in specificity. Note further that, apart perhaps from (3l)c, in all of these examples, a form of the verb achieve could substitute for the pro-verb do within these predicate anaphors, without major semantic or grammatical consequences. 4.1.2 Propositional anaphora As was pointed out in 4.0 and 4.1, propositional anaphora has more ·in common with nominal anaphora than with predicate anaphora in that it presupposes the existence of a mental discourse referent. Its pronominal exponents in English are it, this and that. I shall deal here only with it, however. 4 .1. 2 .1 PROPOSITIONAL IT Just as we distinguished a (rare) predicate-anaphoric function of it from its more customary nominal or propositional anaphoric role (cf. examples (30)a,b from 4.1.1.3), so it is necessary to separate the so-called 'expletive' use of it from its proposition-anaphoric use. The expletive use may be considered as a form of bound anaphora, the pronoun having no independent reference and having as its sole raison d'~tre the marking of a particular type of grammatical relation. Williams (1980:219-222) makes a convincing case for analysing so-called 'Extraposition' constructions, where the apparent subject is

101

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora 'expletive' it, as consisting grammatico-semantically of a predicate (the adjectival or verbal matrix predicate) and a 'subject' corresponding to the extraposed clause (an S). Under this analysis, the dumm~' surface subject (it) would not c-command the extraposed clause, since the latter, as the 'real' subject, would presumably be immediately dominated by the topmost s-node in constituent structure. Hence 'bound anaphora'(under the standard account of this relationship) could obtain between the two elements. Kiparsky & Kiparsky (1971: 361-2) make essentially the same distinction as the one drawn above between expletive and '£active' it. (32)a and b, respectively, illustrate this distinction. (32)a b

It appears that the miners have been defeated. The minister announced that the miners had been defeated. Everybody had been expecting it.

It is interesting to observe in this respect that in French, a formal distinction is made, in careful speech and writing, between the equivalent of expletive it (i.e. il) and that of propositional it (i.e. ce/cela/~a); the nominative neuter pronoun il is almost never used as a propositional anaphor (unlike its accusative counterpart le); and only in highly informal colloquial contexts can cela/~a perform the 'expletive' function (see 4.2.2.1 below). The English demonstrative pronouns this and that, however, can never fulfil this function. I claimed above (cf. 4.1.1.2) that the referent of propositional i·t is an asserted or presupposed proposition, in other words, a proposition which has been assigned a particular truth value and which, by that token, has been entered into some particular discourse model as an intensional entity. The demonstratives this and that function analogously; however, they both have certain further properties, which it lacks. The telic property of the associated predicate anaphor do it follows from this, since the verb do in this combination is fully transitive, it being nominal in status and referring to a definite entity whose existence within the discourse model is presupposed. This is in contrast to so, which is adverbial and has as its antecedent an intension; that is, in combination with do, it forms a less than fully transitive verb phrase (though it may have as a potential antecedent-trigger an expression which consists formally of a verb with a direct object), and carries no implication of telicity. Thus so, unlike it, is not a potentially referring expression. Now let us examine some examples of propositional it. (33)a 102

"Rumania - the odd man out in Eastern Europe, and proud of it" (BBC Radio 4, 22.1.79).

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora b

"Of course, anyone who is assaulted can report it to the police" (The Guardian, 26.4.78, p.7).

c

"If these machines break down, please report it to the porter's lodge immediately" (Notice above soft-drink dispensing machine, Eliot College, UKC).

d

"Was Johnson badly advised? He would have detected it first" (Title of article in The Times Higher Educational Supplement, 10.11.78, p.9).

e

"Don't get lost - it wastes 1Jetrol" (Notice in garage, Canterbury).

f

"Stay low, or you'll live to regret it" (Government anti-drink-and-driving advertisement).

The predicate proud of in (33)a is factive, and the assignment of this interpretation to its direct object it is consonant with the normal interpretation associated with this propositional anaphor. (33)b is interesting, in that the main verb of the anaphoric clause (i.e. the matrix clause here) is likewise £active (the pronoun it may be replaced by the NP the fact without major syntactic or semantic changes), and yet the proposition expressed by its antecedent-trigger is not asserted, nor is it presupposed. Heim (1982:168-192) argues strongly that sentences of this form, which are interpreted as universal in force, are, logically speaking, conditional, where the antecedent-trigger (here the restrictive relative clause who is assaulted) serves to restrict the modal auxiliary can, which functions logically as a modal operator and which has scope over the entire clause. The anaphoric relation obtaining in (33)b (as also in (33)c) is of the same general type as those which we saw in 2.1.5 and 2.3 above, in particular as illustrated in examples 2(2l)b,c and 2(36), 2(37)). That is, the anaphor, being of a certain specific type, is capable, in context, of triggering an expression which is of a grammatical type capable of acting as its 'antecedent' from within a co-occurring expression which does not fulfil this requirement. The 'antecedent' of it in (33)b, then, is 'the fact that a person has been assaulted', where this proposition is understood as falling within the scope of the universal operator associated with the head NP anyone; that is, it here is at the same time a bound propositional variable and a factive pronoun. (33)c can be analysed as having the same general 'Logical Form', the pronoun it again being a bound propositional factive variable. In (33)d, too, the proposition expressed by the antecedent103

Predicate and PI'opositional Anaphora trigger is neither asserted nor presupposed, and yet the it in the second clause is factive via its government by the factive verb detect. Like Heim (1982), we can note that propositional it here occurs within the logical scope of the modal auxiliary would, which has scope over the entire anaphoric clause (the antecedent-trigger clause, we may note, is, logically speaking, under the scope of the interrogative operator); hence, as in the case of (33)b and c, it has both a variable and a factive interpretation. In both (33)e and f, the antecedent-trigger is a sentence in the imperative mood; and in both cases the pronoun it is factive. Thus (33)e and f are like (33)b, c and d, in that in each case the antecedent-trigger sentence is neither asserted nor presupposed; the operator scoping the antecedent-trigger is either understood as scoping the anaphoric clause or the latter is scoped by an operator creating an equivalent modal force; the propositional anaphor is factive yet understood as a variable bound by the operator scoping its clause or by that scoping both the latter and that of its antecedent trigger. Coherence dictates that in (33)e, the negative in the antecedenttrigger clause is not part of the actual 'antecedent' of the pronoun (i.e. 'one's getting lost'), whereas in (33)f, the 'antecedent' predicate must include a negative, even though no negative occurs within the antecedent-trigger. This is evidently due to the coordination of the two clauses by the disjunctive connective or, which introduces an ellipsed conditional sentence of which the actually occurring anaphoric clause is the consequent (i.e.: ' •.• if you do not stay low, .•• ').Thus,like (33)c the propositional it here is understood as a variable bound by the modal operator will. A similar analysis can be given for (33)e, where the ellipsed antecedent part of the conditional clause of which the anaphoric clause is understood as the consequent is 'if you do get lost, ..• 1 , where the pronoun would be bound by the necessity operator which scopes simple generic conditionals (cf. Heim, 1982: 190-192). Examples (33)a-f provide significant evidence in favour of the distinction between 'antecedents' and antecedent-triggers, and of the view that discourse or referential anaphora must be understooJ in terms of dynamic discourse processes, to which the anaphors in question themselves contribute, rather than of static propositional relationships. Let us turn now to an examination of the equivalent predicate and propositional anaphoric phenomena in French.

104

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora FRENCH PREDICATE AND PROPOSITIONAL ANAPHORA

4.2

Excluding those anaphoric relations which may be realised by lexically-headed anaphoric expressions, we may say that the set of predicative and propositional anaphoric relations available in French is as follows: complete or partial ellipsis, the use of pro-verb faire, of le + faire, of faire + cela/9a, of le/y/en + supporting verb, of ce, ceci, cela or 9a, and of the predicate relatives ce qui/que/dont, etc. Recall that I am claiming that it is the nature of the particular anaphor used, together with the grammatical function it is performing (as determined by its governing predicate), which primarily determines the nature of a particular anaphoric relation. The nature and function of the antecedent-trigger expression (where there is one) plays only a secondary role in this. I shall not be concerned here with 'partial ellipsis' (that is, with instances in which only a repeated verb, or verb + direct object or adverbial complement is ellipsed within a clause, a phenomenon commonly referred to as 'Gapping'), nor with the predicate relatives. Let us begin our survey of French predicate and propositional anaphora with a discussion of complete predicate ellipsis. 4.2.1

Predicate anaphora

4. 2. 1 . 1 COMPLETE ELLIPSIS Complete ellipsis in French appears to be possible only when the antecedent-trigger and anaphoric clauses are in a paratactic, but not hypotactic, relation with each other. Compare (34), an example presented earlier in 2.1.3, with (35)a-c:

(34)

Jean prendra une chambre au premier etage, et Georges ¢ aussi 'Jean will take a room on the first floor, and Georges ¢ too' .

l

(35)a*Jean prendra une chambre au premier etage {Isi {quand Georges ¢ aussi. (*)'Jean will take a room on the first floor }if l {when l Georges ¢ too' .

b*Lorsque vous remplirez ce formulaire, faites attention de ¢ soigneusement. (?)'When you fill up this form, take care to¢ carefully'. c*Le gouvernement est pret a introduire des reformes educatives radicales. Mais la question qui se pose est de savoir s'il peut se permettre de ne pas ¢. 105

Predicate and PI'opositional Anaphora 'The government is ready to introduce radical educational reforms. But the question is, can it afford not to ¢?' In both (35)a and c, the ellipsed predicate is in a subordinate clause, while its putative antecedent-trigger is in a main one. In (35)b, however, the reverse relation obtains between the two clauses. Nevertheless, it would appear that the deviancy of both (35)b and c is due to the presence of the stranded complementizer de rather than to the differing relations of the ellipsed predicates to the matrix verbs. French is unlike English in this respect, where the infinitival complementizer to can clearly perform an anaphoric function (cf. Make any comments you care to¢, Can it allow itself not to¢?). If de is a complementizer in its pre-infinitival occurrence (cf. Huot, 1981), while to in the same environment is a non-finite auxiliary verb, as Pullum (1982) argues, then this distribution is predicted. In (35)d below, where there is no overt mark of subordination, complete ellipsis of the repeated predicate is perfectly possible. (35)d

Jacqueline ne devrait pas nager dans cette mer agitee, mais Georges peut ¢. 'Jacqueline shouldn't swim in that rough sea, but Georges can ¢. '

The two clauses involved in the relation need not, however, be formally co-ordinated, as (36) shows: (36)

Jean prendra une chambre au troisieme etage. iGeorges non. { {Georges aussi. J 'Jean will take a room on the third floor. i(But) Georges won't¢. 'l {Georges (will) ¢ too.' }

Finally, anaphoric relations set up in terms of complete predicate ellipsis are subject to the 'Backwards Anaphora Constraint': an ellipsed predicate cannot be interpreted in terms of . a fully specified predicate which it (precedes and) c-commands: (37) #Georges

¢

t:~is~

aussi,

Jean prendra une chambre

au premier etage. #'Georges ¢ too,

~::~~

Jean will take a room on the

first floor.' The crosshatch prefixed to the above example indicates the fact that the interpretation resulting from an attempt to determine the reference of the elliptical clause in terms of the following 106

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora non-elliptical one is incoherent. The initial clause may evidently be interpreted in terms of an appropriate preceding discourse segment, in which case (37) as a whole will not yield a (partially) incoherent discourse. 4. 2 .1. 2

PRO-VERB FAIRE, LE FAIRE, AND FAIRE CELA/fA

The literal sense of faire, as Moignet (1974b:l7) points out, is "to perform some activity, in the most general fashion", and it is this factor which Moignet sees as enabling it to fulfil the anaphoric function, that of 'suppleance' ,or 'deputyship' (1974b:l7). A distinction must, however, bedrawn immediately between pro-verb faire, on the one hand, and the compound predicate anaphors le faire and faire cela/9a on the other. Pro-verb faire, in classical French usage, was used as a simple convenient replacement for any verb, whether or not the verb in question implied the notion of activity. This usage has survived in the writings of certain contemporary literary stylists, as Moignet, ibid., and particularly Eriksson (1984), point out. In common usage, it survives perhaps most naturally in comparative constructions. What is replaced by faire in such environments can be either the verb alone, or the verb together with its complement. Let us compare pro-verb faire with the other two predicate anaphors we are presently concerned with, in its preferred environment (examples (38)a and (39)a were presented above in 2.1.3). (38)a

b

Yves parle plus pendant cinq minutes que ne fait Jacques pendant une journee! 'Yves talks more in five minutes than Jacques does in a day! ' Yves parle plus pendant cinq minutes que ne le fait Jacques pendant une journee! '(*)Yves talks more in five minutes than Jacques does so in a day!'

c *Yves parle plus Jacques pendant '(*)Yves talks does it/that in (39)a

b

pendant cinq minutes que ne fait cela/ya une journee! more in five minutes than Jacques a day!'

Yves raconte bien plus de blagues que ne fait Jacques. 'Yves tells many more jokes than Jacques does.' Yves raconte bien plus de blagues que ne le fait Jacques. '(*)Yves ..... than Jacques does so.'

107

Predicate and Pl'oposi tiona l Anaphora c *Yves raconte bien plus de blagues que ne fait cela/~a Jacques. '(*)Yves ...•. than Jacques does it/that.' (40)a *Jacqueline ne devrait pas nager dans cette mer agitee, mais Georges peut faire. 'Jacqueline shouldn't swim in that rough sea, but Georges can do.' b

Jacqueline ne devrait pas nager dans cette mer agitee, mais Georges peut le faire/faire cela!ra. 'Jacqueline ..•. , but Georges can do so/it/that.'

(4l)a ?Jean aime plus la musique japonaise que ne fait Pierre la musique indienne. 'Jean likes Japanese music more than Pierre does Indian (music).' b

Gerard dort autant dans une journee que ne fait Julien pendant deux nuits! 'Gerard sleeps as much in one day as Julien does in two nights!'

c ?Le ciel devient aussi rouge que ne font les nuages, en ce moment. 'The sky is becoming as red as the clouds are, at the moment. 1 (42)a #Jean aime beaucoup la musique japonaise, et Pierre le fait egalement. 'Jean likes Japanese music a lot, and Pierre does so too.' b #Gerard dort en ce moment, et Julien le fait egalement. 'Gerard is sleeping at the moment, and Julien is doing so too. ' c #-Regarde! Le ciel devient tout rouge! -Les nuages le font aussi. (#)'-Look! The sky is growing all red! -The clouds are doing so too. 1 Examples (38)a,b and(39)a,b show that le faire may function anaphorically in the only syntactic environment in which proverb faire is able to, while the contrast illustrated in (40)a,b shows that pro-verb faire is syntactically restricted in a way that le faire is not. The ungrammaticality of the occurrence of the most highly referential of the three predicate anaphors under consideration (faire cela/9a) as the verb of the subordinate comparative 108

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora clause in both (38)c and (39)c, taken together with the ungrammaticality of (40)a, where pro-verb faire occurs in a clause which is only loosely connected with the antecedent clause (via co-ordination rather than subordination) strongly suggests that pro-verb faire is a verbal analogue of the 'bound variable' use of simple pronouns. Moignet (1974b:l9-20) indeed, calls faire, when it is used in discourse as a 'suppleant' (i.e. as a pro-verb), a 'non-entier'; by this he means that faire, when functioning in discourse as a pro-verb, is a semantically non-autonomous expression. This status would explain why it is largely restricted in contemporary French to occurring in a grammatically highly constrained context, the subordinate comparative clause, which, correspondingly, is referentially non-autonomous. Moignet (ibid.,pp.20-21) claims that faire, when acting as a pro-verb (and also, indeed, as the verbal head of the compound phrasal predicate anaphors le faire and faire cela/9a) performs a relatively superficial, substitutive role, replacing (it would seem) the antecedent lexeme (together, potentially, with any complement), rather than its actual surface form: the tense, aspect, modality and voice of the anaphoric clause appear (in principle) to be independent of those of the antecedent clause. Given this lack of referential autonomy, Moignet argues, it is logical that in order to function in referentially autonomous environments,faire should be augmented to include a pronominal complement (neuter le or the demonstrative cela/ra). Thus in referential environments where only le faire or faire cela/9a may occur as anaphor (e.g., as in examples like (40)), the head component faire functions simply to replace, in the semantically most general fashion, the verbal element of the antecedent, while le or cela refers to the conceptual or propositional content of the antecedent predicate as a whole. In Moignet's own words, Dans l'operation de suppleance, l'esprit fait done une repartition du verbal et du nominal de la forme verbale et de la mati~re substantive differente de celle du premier etat: il opere une redistribution de la matiere notionnelle, presque toute celle-ci passant dans le morpheme le, le minimum indispensable subsistant dans le verbe (devenu morpheme) qui signifie la simple activite. 7 (ibid.,pp.20-21). The difference between pro-verb faire and the predicate anaphor le faire is further in evidence in the contrast between the examples in (41) and those in (42). In (41), faire can substitute for stative as well as process verbs (though somewhat less easily for the stative and process verbs in (4l)a and c, respectively, than for the process verb in (4l)b, within the subordinate comparative clauses in which it occurs); in the examples in (42), on the other hand, where the occurrences of 109

Predicate and P't'opositional Anaphora le faire are all within syntactically independent clauses,incoherence (rather than ungrammaticality) arises when it is attempted to interpret the forms of le faire as anaphoric to the entire predicate of the preceding clause. This is due to the fact that neuter le, when attached to faire, assigns an agentive interpretation to its subject (that is, in this construction, faire bears more of the lexical properties of the ordinary verb faire than is the case with pro-verb faire, as the possibility of examples like (4l)a-c indicates). Le faire, however, is not yet a fully transitive verbal predicate, due to the neuter and clitic status of its pronominal complement, a status which the grammatical nature of examples like (38)b and (39)b whose antecedent-trigger predicates are intransitive, confirms. The difference between (38)a and b, and between (39)a and b, is one of emphasis: the use of le faire in the anaphoric clause of the (b) examples signals a greater degree of interest on the part of the speaker upon the act constituted by talking (or its absence) and upon the act constituted by telling jokes, rather than upon the fact or property represented by the lack of loquacity or the propensity to tell jokes. In both of the (a) examples, where faire is used, the speaker's emphasis is upon the latter rather than the former. To test this, let us substitute le faire in a context in which pro-verb faire can occur, and where it would be anaphoric to a predication which ·does not refer to an action: #Jean aime plus la musique japonaise que ne le fait Pierre la musique indienne. (?)'Jean likes Japanese music more than Pierre does so/# it.'

(4l)a~

dort autant dans une journee que ne le fait Julien pendant deux nuits! (#)'Gerard sleeps as much in one day as Julien does so/it in two nights! 1

b~?#Gerard

ciel devient aussi rouge que ne le font les nuages, en ce moment. (#)'The sky is becoming as red as the clouds are doing so/it, at the moment.'

c~?#Le

Note that, while (4l)a~is clearly deviant as a result of the incompatibility of the reference of both clauses, (4l)b~ and c are less obviously so. This is no doubt due to the fact that in the (b~) example, the use of le faire has re-assigned the interpretation 'specific action' to the antecedent predicate, in such a way that both of the states of affairs referred to are viewed as being deliberately brought about: that is, an interpretation is available such that Julien is deliberately restricting his nightly sleeping time 8 - an interpretation which is not so evidently available in the version with pro-verb

110

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora faire, (4l)b. Such an interpretation would render the discourse

represented by (4l)b' coherent overall. In (4l)c', where the two predications refer to a process rather than to a state, coherence would be attainable by interpreting the sky and the clouds as agents. The deictic adverbial phrase en ce moment strengthens the likelihood of this interpretation by tying the reference of both clauses to a specific space/time-bound context.

The degree of referentiality inherent in the predicate anaphor faire cela/9a is higher still than that of le faire, due to the fact that the disjunctive, neuter demonstrative cela/~a itself has greater referential potential than the clitic neuter demonstrative pronoun le (see 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2 below). This is apparent in the contrast between the (b) and (c) versions of (38) and (39). The reason for this deviancy (which is clearly categorical) is primarily due to the fact that the verbal element required in such a context must be syntactically and semantically intransitive. Le faire, not being a fully transitive verbal expression, may thus occur (witness (38)b and (39)b); faire cela/~a, however, being syntactically and semantically fully transitive (the verb faire within the expression bearing more of the properties of the ordinary nonanaphoric verb faire than does its counterpart in the expression le faire), may not. The contrast between the two anaphors comes out more clearly still when (42)c, in which the use of le faire as predicate anaphor results in incoherence, is compared with (42)c' below: (42)c'

Regarde! Le ciel devient tout rouge! - Les nuages font 9a aussi. ' ..• The clouds are doing it/that, too.'

The verb + direct object (i.e. fully transitive) status of font ~a in this version of (43)c assigns to its subject expression an agentive interpretation (cf. the discussion of English do it in 4.1.1.3 above). With this value, the verb faire assumes the non-anaphoric status of the ordinary verb faire in such a way that the reference of the antecedent predication devient tout rouge is not mirrored by that of the expression font ~a as a unit, but by that of the demonstrative pronoun ~a alone. Thus, the issue of coherence does not arise in (42)c', as it did in (42)c, since a verb predication referring to a (specific) action is not anaphoric to a predication referring to a process (i~e. a non-action). 4. 2. 1. 3 LE (_!, EN) AS A PREDICATE ANAPHOR Let us look now at some of the ways in which 'neuter' le can function as a predicate anaphor. There are at least two theoretically interesting types of predicate anaphoric relation-

111

Predicate and Propositional Anaphorc ships which Ze may contract with an antecedent-trigger without the presence of a mental discourse referent to which Ze, in this usage, refers. That is, we have to do here with forms of 'surface' anaphora, in Hankamer & Sag's (1976) terminology (or 'ellipsis', in their later work, Sag & Hankamer, 1984), where identity of predicates at the level of 'propositional form', rather than strict morpho-syntactic surface identity, is required (cf. 4.1.1.1 and 4.1.1.2; note that many of the English examples so far presented involving predicate ellipsis or predicate so have French equivalents with Ze, y or en, and vice versa. ) 1) The first type of predicate anaphoric relation is analogous to the use of nominal pronouns dubbed 'pronouns of laziness' by Geach (1968) and Karttunen (1969), where the pronoun is merely a place-holder for its antecedent-trigger, without there being any kind of referential identity between the two. Karttunen's now famous example of this was (43): (43)

(K's (18)) The man who gave his paycheck to his wife was wiser than the man who gave it to his mistress.

The 'place-holder' interpretation in this example, as Karttunen points out (1969:114), is in fact contingent on the pronoun his in the antecedent-trigger NP being interpreted as a bound variable (i.e. 'his own paycheck'). There are, clearly, lexical and contextual factors in this and other examples, which render the coreferential rather than bound-variable interpretation of the pronoun less likely (see 4.1.1.1, and, in particular, the discussion there of examples (12)a and b). The important point, however, is that the relation in question is established in terms of identity of predicates. (44).

An example of a 'predicate anaphor of laziness' would be

(44) (from Sandfeld, 196S,p.62) "Il n'est pas depourvu de psychologie, et il l'est tout a fait de pudeur". 'He is not devoid of psychology, but he is ~ totally of decency." 9 The predicate anaphor appears here to be a substitute for a perfect morphological copy of the antecedent-trigger. However, this is by no means a necessary requirement: (4S)a

112

" .•. Cette pretendue degradation [de la langue fran~aise] justifiait .•. la multiplication au cours du siecle des chroniques qui tentent a grands frais de maintenir ce qui peut Z'etre." (C.Desirat & T. Horde (1976) La Langue Fran¥aise au 20e Siecle, p.83).

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora (?)'This alleged deterioration [of the French language] justified ••• the huge increase throughout the century in the number of newspaper columns which tried, at great expense, to maintain what could be¢'. b

c

" ••• une partie du sensa transmettre peut Z'etre au moyen de mimiques, de gestes, de l'intonation". (G. Vigner (1979) Lire: du texte au sens, CLE International, p.ll). {d l (?)'Part of the meaning to be conveyed can be{¢one 1 via mime, gestures, or intonation'. (Cited in Harmer, 1979:158) "En peinture, le Louvre possede quelque 5 000 'numeros'. 2 000 sont exposes, 500, en moyenne, sont en voyage ••• et 2 500 dans les reserves. Sur les 2 500, 1 000 sont exposables, de l'avis de la Conservation. Et ils le sont souvent." (Le Figaro Litteraire, 6.8.84). 'As far as painting is concerned, the Louvre possesses some 5,000 items. 2,000 of them are exhibited, 500, on average, are in transit •.• and 2,500 are held in reserve. Of the 2,500, 1,000 are exhibitable, on the curators' estimate. And they often are¢'.

In (45)a and b, and more radically in c, the copy of the antecedent-trigger, if reinstated in place of the predicate anaphor, would be formally different from the antecedenttrigger itself: maintenu in (45)a, transmise in (45)b (both past participles of the respective verbs), and expos~s in (45)c (the past participle of the verb exposer, which is triggered as antecedent of Ze via its adjectival form, exposable). As such, the anaphora in (45)c is more marked than that in (45)a and b, which, in turn is more marked than that illustrated in (44). The examples in (45) thus manifest the same property which we saw illustrated in the examples of English predicate ellipsis in 4.1.1.1 (cf. especially, examples (12)-(20), and the discussion on them, pp. 91-94): namely that the 'surface' anaphoric relation involved is sensitive not primarily to surfacesyntactic features of the antecedent segment, but to logical and contextual-referential properties of both the antecedenttrigger and the anaphoric predicates, within their respective discourse environments. 2) The second type of predicate anaphoric relationship which neuter le may create manifests this property even more clearly. It involves the creation by the anaphoric segment of an 'antecedent' (i.e. a predicate) from a morphologically related antecedent-trigger, but which is performing within its immediate context a non-predicative function. The following are (attested) examples. 113

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora (46)a

" .•. M.Gilbert Baumet, ••. jusqu'alors non inscrit, l'est desormais au groupe du RPR." (Le Monde, 10.8.85, p.l). ' .•• M.Gilbert Baumet, ••. until then not registered (i.e. as belonging to a particular Parliamentary group), is~ henceforth with the RPR group'.

b

" .•. Virtuellement achevee, la 'negociation Habib' risque done de durer encore, avec tous les risques que cela comporte de relance des hostilites. Israel ne parait plus pouvoir se le permettre impunement ••. " (Le Monde, 15-16.8.82,p.2: 'La recherche d'un reglement au Liban'). 'Virtually over, the 'Habib negotiation' may well continue for some time, with all the risks of restarting hostilities that that entails. Israel no longer seems to be able to afford to do so(/this) with impunity.' (From 'The search for a settlement in Lebanon'.)

c

"On essaie de definir ce concept de 'langue majeure', qui serait un petit peu desagreable pour d'autres langues qui ne le seraient pas" (France Culture, 15.7.80). 'We are trying to define this notion of 'major language', which might be a bit unpleasant for other languages which are not ~·.

d

"Un ecrivain ne peut l'etre qu'apres un long apprentissage" (France Culture, 9.12.78). 'A writer can only be so after a long apprenticeship'.

This type of predicate-anaphoric relation is, in fact, an instance of the type of anaphora known in the literature as 'anaphoric islandhood' (already illustrated in 2.3). In (46)a, the antecedent-trigger for neuter le is the A non inscrit ('unregistered'). The process of interpretation of the pronoun, within its immediate predicative environment, 'removes' the adjective inscrit from the scope of the negative operator within the antecedent-trigger as a function of the coherence principle (cf. the examples of English predicate ellipsis given in (17) and (18) above); and secondly, it transforms the adjective's originally attributive function to a predicative one, thereby assigning it a correspondingly different interpretation. In (46)b, again an instance of an incursion into an 'anaphoric island', the only interpretation available for neuter le is the one which derives a predicate 'antecedent' from the (deverbal) expression relance des hostilit~s ('restarting hostilities'), namely de relancer les hostilit~s. More common examples of this kind of anaphora, however, are those where le is anaphoric to an (attributive) adjective 114

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora modifying the head of a noun phrase, as illustrated in (46)a and 2(2l)b and con p. 17; but note also the nominal (deverbal) 'anaphoric islands' which are 'violated' without oddity by neuter le, illustrated in examples 2(37)a and b, on p. 29. In (46)c, it is the post-nominal 'epithet' adjective whose predicative character le highlights, while in (46)d, it is the head noun, a lexeme which is neither primitively verbal nor adjectival in character. The subject NP as a whole, however, has generic reference in this example to a set of individuals, characterised by their satisfying the predicate 'being a writer'. Further such examples are cited in Sandfeld (1965:61-2). The crucial factors conditioning the possibility of neuter

le, y or en triggering an 'antecedent' predicate from within a

(morphologically related) lexical expression which, within its immediate environment, is not performing a predicative function, seem therefore to be: (a) the fact that the morphologically related form (or the expression itself, if there is no such form) is intrinsically a predicative expression (i.e. it is a verb, adjective, preposition, or noun); and (b) that the whole constituent of which the potentially predicative element is a part is itself performing a more fully predicative than referential function in context. I would argue that referentiality and predicativity are the two poles of a cline on which linguistic expressions may be situated in terms of the discourse function they are assuming in any particular instance (see, in this respect, the referential hierarchy proposed for non-demonstrative pronouns below under (59), as well as the discussion on pp. 124-5 below; cf. also Giv6n, 1979a, and Hopper & Thompson, 1984, for a similar view). Clearly, referentiality and predicativity are not 'all-or-nothing' properties, since expressions manifest both attributes to a greater or lesser degree (e.g. nominal expressions typically consist of a predicate, whether simple or complex, as head, and a reference-indicating component (a determiner), and verb predications consist of a predicator as head, with, likewise, a reference-indicating component (tense, aspect, voice, mood, modal auxiliary)). In (46)d, for example, the antecedent-trigger, though an NP in subject (i.e. argument) position and with an inherently nominal head (the noun ~crivain), assumes a generic rather than specific referential value in context, which means that its predicative component is in focus, in the shape of the defining property the application of which is further restricted by the predication which is applied to it. Thus the interpretation under which neuter le is triggering as its actual 'antecedent' the predicative component of that subject NP is perfectly coherent in this context. Sandfeld (1965:63) presents an interesting contrast in this respect, which can serve to illustrate the constraint I am 115

Predicate and Propositionat Anaphora suggesting: (47)a

(Sandfeld, p.63)

b

(Ibid., p.63)

b~

(My version)

(48)a

(Ibid.,p.63)

b

(Ibid. ,p.63)

b~

(My version)

"-Etes-vous la directrice? 'Are you the (female) director?' -Oui, je tasuis (Lit.) Yes, I am her' 11-0ui, jete suis" 'Yes, I am ¢' "Etes-vous directrice? 'Are you a (female) director?' -Qui, je te suis 'Yes, I am ¢' 11-0ui, j e ta suis" (Lit.) 'Yes, I am her'.

The definite article ta in (47)a, as Sandfeld (p.63) observes, marks the NP which it introduces as referential (i.e. serving to pick out a particular individual from within the contextually defined domain of interpretation): in such a context "la marque ••• l'identite et ne sert pas, comme te, a indiquer l'espece" ('ta signals identity and not, like le, type'). That is, (47)a is an instance of an 'equative' sentence, both NPs being referential. In (48)a, on the other hand, the absence of any article signals that directrice is adjectival in function, and so non-referential; we have to do, therefore, with a 'predicative' sentence. (See Lyons, 1977:469-475, for a discussion of the differences between 'equative' and 'predicative' sentences). Coherence factors are applicable in both instances: in (47), the question bears upon the identity of an individual, the actual existence of whom is presupposed within the context in question. Yet in (47)b~, there is a semantic/pragmatic clash between the presupposition of existence signalled by the definite article introducing the antecedent-trigger NP (a logical argument expression), and hence its non-predicative status as part of an equative construction, and the specifically predicative status re-assigned to its predicate component (its head noun) by the use of neuter te as anaphor. And in (48)b~, the clash operates in the reverse direction. The same kind of incoherence would have obtained in (48) if, instead of the responses in the (b) or (b)~ versions, the anaphoric clause had been the equative sentence C'est moi ('That is me'). Incoherence, therefore, signals the limits beyond which te cannot isolate a potentially predicative element as its actual 'antecedent' from within a structure where it does not overtly assume such a grammatico-referential function. The situation is thus very much in line with that illustrated by examples

116

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora (60)a, (6l)a and (62)a, in 4.2.2.1 below (pp. 124-125) where extreme incoherence results from an attempt to reinterpret a predicate antecedent-trigger as a specific, individual 'personalized' entity by means of the highly referential disjunctive personal pronoun, lui. Note also, that, like English so and predicate ellipsis, neuter le allows 'sloppy-identity' readings, as the following example, cited in Sandfeld (1965:59), illustrates. "Je garderai mes terrains •.. Vous ne le pourrez pas". 'I will keep my land ••• You won't be able to~·.

(49)

The contextually most likely interpretation of le here is in fact the 'sloppy-identity' one, namely 'keep your own land'. Sandfeld (1985:136, 86) describes non-nominal y and en as atonic (clitic) forms of the PPs ~ cela and de cela, respectively. This brings them into line with neuter le, which corresponds to the prepositionless disjunctive, cela. Examples have already been presented of non-nominal y and en (2(17) and 2(18)a,b, p. 15 above), and there is abundant evidence that these 'oblique' pronouns are adverbial in status. En, at least, can be said to be semantically indefinite, from its occurrence as an anaphor to quantified Ns and partitive NPs as antecedent-triggers. As Sandfeld (ibid., p.l44) points out in connection with its occurrence as a nominal anaphor, en "represente 1 I espike a laquelle appartient 1 I antecedent" ('represents the type of entity to which the antecedent belongs') - that is, in more contemporary terms, it triggers the predicate contained in the N component of its antecedent-trigger, where this is an NP. One of Sandfeld's examples is (50): (SO)

(Sandfeld, 1965:144) "-Dis-moi 'Tell me -Je n'en 'I don't

ton nom. your name'. ai pas." have any ~·.

It is the lexical structure of the supporting verb which determines whether its complement, when acting as a predicate or propositional anaphor, will be realised as en, y or le. Gaatone (1980:186), in an interesting study of en, provides a good example of this in (51): (Sl)a b

(G's (9)a) - Est-ce que Robert avait l'air fAche? 'Did Robert look angry?' (G's (9)b) - Il en avait l'air, mais il l'etait pas. 'He looked it, but he wasn't ~.'

Gaatone points out that, though there is no preposition de in surface structure preceding the antecedent-trigger

117

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora adjective fach~, the predicate anaphor used as complement of a token of this same verb in the anaphoric clause in (Sl)b is en rather than the accusative le, since lexically, avoir l'air is constructed with the preposition de. This preposition is deletable when the verb's complement is an adjective phrase, as in (Sl)a, but not when it is an NP or an infinitive phrase (cf. Gaatone's examples (lO)b Ce type a l'air d'un espion, 'That fellow looks like a spy', (lO)c *Ce type a l'air un espion, '?That fellow looks a spy', and (9)c Est-ce que Robert avait l'air d'~tre fach~?, 'Did Robert seem to be angry?'). The presence of de introducing an infinitive complement, however, is not an infallible indication, its presence before an NP complement being a surer sign. That is, the de preceding an infinitival phrase may be acting as a complementizer (and thus only loosely connected with the head verb) rather than as a lexemic prepositional or particle component of the verb itself. The former situation is exemplified by (52)a, and confirmed by the impossibility of (52)b (cf. also example (i) in note 5, Chapter 2, p. 32 ), while the latter is illustrated by (53)a and b: (52)a (G's (40)a) Nos amis acceptent de vous voir. 'Our friends agree to see you' b (G's (40)b)*Nos amis en acceptent. 'Our friends agree to it'. (53)a (G's (39)a) Nos amis s'etonnent de ne plus vous voir. 'Our friends are surprised not to see you any more'. b (G's (39)b) Nos amis s'en etonnent. 'Our friends are surprised at it'. It would appear from these facts that the constituent structure of the VP in (52)a is acceptent + de vous voir, while that in (53)a is s'~tonnent de+ ne plus vous voir. On Huot's (1981) analysis, the infinitive complement in (53)a would be introduced in underlying structure by the complementizer de, but this would be deleted at a later stage in the derivation by the morphophonological rule which eliminates the second of two phonologically identical morphemes, to avoid 'cacophony' (cf. Gross, 1968:39). Since non-nominal y and en are evidently adverbial pronouns, then, and since they are both syncretisms of a verbal ~ + clitic neuter le and verbal de + clitic neuter le, respectively, it would seem justifiable to view neuter le itself as adverbial, particularly in view of the fact noted in 4.2.1.2 (p.llO) that le faire (and by extension, le and any other potential supporting verb) is not a fully transitive verbal expression. Given 118

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora the many other properties which it shares with the English predicate anaphor so, this status would seem quite appropriate. However, its morphological definiteness allows it to be anaphoric to presupposed or asserted propositions as well, so that it also shares features of English it. Further support for considering neuter le as adverbial,like its variant forms y and en, comes from an examination of the kinds of verbs which may support it (i.e. act as its 'host'): these are predominantly non-transitive verbs, such as the 'attributive' verbs ~tre, 'to be', demeurer,'to remain', devenir, 'to become', rester, 'to remain', paraitre, 'to appear' and sembler, 'to seem', and the auxiliary verbs devoir, 'should/ought to', vouloir, 'want to', pouvoir, 'can/be able to'. Carrasco (1975:305) goes so far as to say that "seules les formes verbales vides, simples vehicules de traits verbaux, autorisent le pronom neutre predicat" ('only empty verb forms, bare vehicles of verbal features, allow the neuter predicate pronoun'). Yet there is in reality a much wider range of supporting verbs taking sententialcomplements with which neuter le can co-occur (e.g. souhaiter, 'to desire', pr~f~rer, 'to prefer', d~sirer, 'to want/wish', savoir, 'to know', penser, 'to think', croire, 'to believe' (in the sense ' ..• that something is the case': cf. the distinction between English believe so and believe it discussed in 4.1.1.2), craindre, 'to fear', imaginer, 'to imagine', deviner, 'to guess', esp~rer, 'to hope', pr~tendre, 'to claim'). These are verbs of propositional attitude or of psychological state, and indeed they closely recall to mind the class of English verbs with which the predicate anaphor so may co-occur (seep. 95 above). There are of course many more such verbs, yet many of these are constructed either with the preposition D (e.g. s'attendre D, 'to expect') or with de(e.g. se douter de, 'to ~uspect/guess'), and so co-occur with y or en~ respectively, as their predicate or propositional anaphor. But neuter le (y~ en) is not restricted to co-occurring with verbs capable of taking sentential complements, as is shown by the verb mourir ('to die') in (54): (54)

" ... Une lettre lui [Schliemann] parvient en reponse la sienne: Minna [the woman S loves] est mariee depuis trois mois a peine. Il [Schliemann] croit en mourir, ... " (From A. Decaux, L'epicier qui decouvrit Troie). ~ letter reached him in reply to his own: Minna had been married for barely three months. He thought he would die (lit: from it)'.

a

Equally clearly, however, there are verbs capable of taking an attributive comp~ement, such as partir ('to leave'), pousser ('to grow') and vivre ('to live') which, as Carrasco notes, may 119

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora not support neuter le: (55)a 10 (C's (3l))*Jean part furieux mais son frere ne le part pas. 'Jean leaves in a fury, but his brother doesn't (?*leave so)'. b

(C's (32))#Ma barbe pousse blanche, et la tienne poussera bientot. 'My beard is growing white, and yours will (grow so), soon'.

c

(C's (33))#Emile vit heureux mais sa femme ne Ze vit pas. 'Emile lives happily but his wife doesn't (live so)'.

Ze

Carrasco excludes these verbs as potential anaphoric supports for Ze on the grounds that they have not yet reached the high degree of grammaticalization that is clearly exhibited by the copulative verbs demeurer, devenir, etc. Yet this does not explain why fully lexical verbs such as dire, penser, souhaiter, croire, etc. (see p. 119) may support le within an anaphoric clause. Surely the reason for the incompatibilities in (55) is the fact that the supporting verbs are full (i.e. non-copulative) activity- or process-denoting verbs, and that as such they cannot easily be interpreted in such a way that they introduce a predicative structure of the form ~tre + attribute (a type of interpretation which Carrasco, correctly, views neuter leas assigning to its antecedents). That (55)b, care not ungrammatical, 11 but incoherent under the interpretation whereby le is in a predicate-anaphoric relation with the adjectives blanche and heureux, respectively, is indicated by the well-formedness of (56)a and b: (56)a

b

Jacques ne sait pas encore ce qu'il fera plus tard dans la vie. Son pere Ze poussera certainement a devenir medecin quand le moment viendra. 'Jacques doesn't yet know what he will do later on in life. His father will certainly urge him to become a doctor when the time comes'. Jean a vecu un moment bien difficile le mois dernier, et sa femme le vivra elle-meme le mois prochain. 'Jean went through quite a difficult period last month, and his wife will go through it herself next month'.

Clearly, then, it is the interpretation 'etre + attribute (i.e.theantecedent-trigger predicate)' which neuter Ze, y and en superimpose upon their antecedent-trigger predicates, rather

120

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora than this constituting, at a formal level, an underlying structure for which these anaphors substitute. This is precisely the same kind of interpretation attaching to structures in which neutral concord (see 6.4 below) has operated (cf. those NPs whose head is a lexeme derived from an originally nonnominal category, such as le politique ('the political') = 'ce qui est politique' ('that which is political')). 4.2.2 Propositional anaphora It is not immediately obvious that in the case of neuter il/le and ce/cela/~a we have to do with the same kind of distinction which appeared to hold between English so and it (cf. 4.1.1.2, 4.1.1.3 and 4.1.2 above). So, it was argued, is syntactically adverbial, semantically indefinite, and is essentially a predicate anaphor; while it (as well as its demonstrative counterparts this and that) is syntactically an NP, is semantically definite, and is essentially a nominal (or entityreferring) anaphor. I drew a distinction above between the sentence, which semantically is primarily a predicative construction (and hence may readily act as antecedent-trigger to so), and the clause (i.e. constituents of S status), which may or may not be predicative, depending on its linguistic context. If the latter, then the clause will refer to a proposition, which will thus have a 'factual' or 'entity' status within the discourse model; in this case, it(or this/that) will be the anaphor chosen to refer back to it. In many cases, however, it is the choice of predicate or propositional anaphor itself which superimposes its semantic value upon the antecedenttrigger, causing the corresponding discourse referent to be reinterpreted accordingly (this latter effect is automatic in the case of the relevant 'antecedentless' anaphors). French neuter le does not correspond exactly to English so: not only is it (morphologically) definite, whereas so

is indefinite, but also it may refer anaphorically either to predicates or to propositions (that is, to asserted or presupposed propositions). Two important features of le, however, are its 'neuter' status (i.e. it is invariant in number and gender) and the fact that it is a clitic and not a disjunctive pronoun: in 5.4. below, we will be seeing how the referential range of clitic pronouns in general is highly restricted in comparison to disjunctive ones. The main reason for this state of affairs is that clitic pronouns, by their very nature, cannot occupy NP-argument positions, and so are not potential referring expressions; they are phonologically and syntactically wholly dependent on their supporting verbs - indeed, they are constituents of V status. In spite of this, I would claim, clitic neuter le may still refer anaphorically to propositions because of its morphologically definite status. The neuter demonstrative cela/~a, on the other hand, is disjunctive, and so has NP 121

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora status and is capable of occurring in NP-argument positions. Thus when it occurs as direct or indirect object of a verb, the resulting verb phrase is a semantically fully transitive verbal expression, yielding the interpretation of telicity which we attributed to the English predicate anaphor do it, in 4.1.1.3. In French, le + supporting verb constructions, like English verb + so expressions, may or may not be interpreted as telic. Yet the lack of any complete correspondence between French neuter le and English so is clearly indicated by the different distribution of asterisks and crosshatches in the French and English versions of examples (38)b, (39)b and (42)a,

b.

4. 2. 2.1 NEUTER IL/LE, '!_ AND EN In connection with the distinction between the propositionanaphoric (or 'factive') it and expletive it in 4.1.2.1, I noted that in French, this distinction is marked morphologically (at least in careful speech and writing): the nominative impersonal pronoun il (and less frequently, its accusative counterpart, le) characteristically fulfils the non-referential, expletive function, whereas the disjunctive demonstratives cela and ~a are specialised in the referential, propositionanaphoric role. Presumably, the relative rarity of occurrences of 'neuter' il in the proposition-anaphoric function 12 correlates with its more characteristic function as an expletive, impersonal pronoun, and accusative le, conversely. The following, however, are attested examples of il used as a proposition anaphor. (57)a

122

" ... Peut-on serieusement affirmer que ce que l'on nomme incoherences et que nous ressentons comme tel est ressenti, vecu par l'enfant en question comme des incoherences ou meme qu'il puisse l'etre?" (Apprendre a Argumenter: Analyse de Discours et Didactique des Langues, H. Fortine, B.E.L.C., 1978,p.96). ' •.. Can one seriously assert that what we call incoherence and perceive as such, is perceived and felt by the child in question as incoherent, or even that it could be?' .

b

" •.. comment interpreter le monde peut-il le changer?" (L'accumulation mondiale, Andre Gunder Frank, CalmannLevy, p.23). ' .•. How can interpreting the world change it?"

c

" ... Mais combien d'annees cela pourra-t-il durer?" (Le Monde, 24.10.80, p.l4). ' .•. But how many years can it last?'.

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora In fact, only in (57)a is il a genuine example of the proposition-anaphoric function of this pronoun: in both (57)b and c, il is a grammatically-controlled, non-referential copy of the subject NP (analogous to the 'expletive' use of il). The clitic demonstrative ce is not possible here, because of the post-verbal position due to the complex subject inversion; otherwise, the disjunctive form cela/qa would have been possible, acting as a referential pronoun in an NP-argument position (cf. (57)b~ •.. Interpr~ter le monde, cela peut le changer; (57)c~ .... Cela pourra durer combien d'ann~es?). In (57)a, however, il does occur in an NP-argument position, and, since it cannot be construed in this environment as an impersonal, rheme-introducing expletive (as in Il se peut que les magasins soient ferm~s, 'It may be that the shops are closed'), it can only be interpreted as referentially anaphoric. Though there is in the preceding discourse context a noun-headed NP whose singular, masculine feature values match those realized by il, namely l'enfant ('the child'), this interpretation must be rejected, since it would lead to incoherence once the predicate applying to il is determined (via the resolution of the accusative predicate anaphor le in puisse l'~tre: this can only be in terms of the antecedent-trigger predicate v~cu par l'enfant en question comme des incoh~rences, 'felt by the child in question as incoherent'). It is instead the clause acting as an NP, which is indeed the topic of the discourse fragment under (57)a as a whole- namely, ce que l'on nomme incoh~rences et que nous ressentons comme tel - which is the antecedent-trigger of il in this example. In my view, it is because this antecedent-trigger expression has both nominal form (being preceded by ce que)and nominal function (performing the subject argument role of the predicate est ressenti ... incoh~rences) that it can serve as antecedent-trigger to nominative, neuter il , which also occurs in a subject argument position. Two errors in this usage committed by second-year University students serve to highlight this restriction: (58)a

b

#" ... Il [vaudrait] mieux developper les enseignements dans un autre domaine pour permettre plus de choix et de diversite. Il est souhaitable cependant parce que ... " ' .•. It would be better to develop the courses offered in a different field to allow more choice and diversity.(#) It is desirable, however, because .•. '

#" ... Pourquoi done developper les etudes professionnelles s'il n'y a que [peu de chances] qu'il aide l'economie?" ' ... Why therefore develop vocational studies if there is only a slight chance that it will help the economy?'

123

Predicate and P1•oposi tiona l Anaphora While the occurrence of nominative il as a proposition anaphor is rare in modern French, its logical disjunctive counterpart, lui, is non-existent in the proposition-anaphoric function. 13 It is the neuter demonstrative pronoun cela/9a which occurs in all environments in which a non-nominal disjunctive pronoun lui would be predicted to occur; and the same pair of neuter demonstratives are rapidly replacing propositionanaphoric il in subject position as well, as we have seen. The reasons behind these various differing anaphoric properties, I would claim, have to do with referential potential. Disjunctive pronouns clearly have greater reference potential than do conjunctive, or clitic ones, being reserved as they are for expressing special emphasis (see the discussion in 5.4, and particularly Table 5.1); moreover, in general, expressions performing the function of grammatical subject (as il obligatorily does) universally bear a higher degree of reference potential than do those functioning as non-subject (a status which le automatically has) - cf. e.g. Giv6n (1978). There is thus a hierarchy in terms of reference potential amongst the non-demonstrative pronouns, as follows: (59)

lui

> il

> le

That is, lui(as a disjunctive, not a dative clitic pronoun) is restricted to nominal, personalized 'antecedents', il (in its 'neuter' usage) to clausal 'antecedents' marked as nominal in form, while le is the least restricted of the three, capable of occurring anaphorically in relation to either predicates or propositions. Given that there is an inverse relation between referentiality and predicativity, such that the more fully referential an expression is in context, the less predicative it is at the saem time; and that, the more predicative it is in context, the less fully referential, then it can'be predicted that there will be a conflict between the properties associated with grammatical form and function, on the one hand, and those associated with pronominal predicate anaphors, on the other. This conflict would express itself in its most acute form in the case of disjunctive lui 3 if this pronoun were used as a predicate anaphor. The conflict is least acute in the case of 'neuter' le, whose low degree of referentiality, associated with its clitic, non-subject (and hence non-argumental) and non-demonstrative form renders it suitable for assuming the predicative reference value which it naturally exhibits. Examples of the differences in reference potential between disjunctive lui and the clitic pronouns le 3 y and en follow. (60)a

124

#Paul croit lai 14 (lui = 'que sa femme le trompe') 'Paul believes it (it = 'that his wife is unfaithful to him')'

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora Paul le croit (le = 'que sa femme le trompe') 'Paul believes it (it= 'that his wife •.. ')'

b

#Georges tient beaucoup a lui (lui = 'donner bonne impression 1 ) 'Georges insists a lot on it (it = 'giving a good impression')'

(6l)a

b Georges y tient beaucoup (y = 'donner bonne impression') 'Georges insists a lot on it (it= 'giving •.•• ')' (62)a b

#Jacques parle souvent de lui (lui = 'faire des voyages') 'Jacques often speaks of it (it= 'travelling')' Jacques en parle souvent (en= 'faire des voyages') 'Jacques often speaks of it (it= 'travelling')'.

Note that the discourses represented in (6l)a and (62)a would still be incoherent if the occurrences of lui were interpreted as referring (whether through the mediation of an antecedenttrigger or not) to 'son velo' ('his bicycle'); however, such interpretations would be less severely incoherent than is actually the case in (6l)a and (62)a, since the referent of lui would then be a 'first-order (extensional)' entity (in Lyons's 1977 terms), and so could, in principle, sustain a reinterpretation, via the disjunctive pronoun, as a personalized entity. (I will be discussing the relative referential properties of clitic and non-clitic pronouns later on in 5.4). Each of the three incoherent examples in (60)-(63), where lui occurs as a proposition anaphor, would be rendered fully coherent by substituting cela/9a, with the reference held constant in each instance. The substitution (obligatory in these instances) of cela/~a for lui here is thus in line with the current tendency in French, noted by Harris (1978:121), force to replace neuter il in subject position where the verb is ~tre (cf. (58)a), and force or cela/9a to replace il and elle as well as le and la when these pronouns are used to refer anaphorically to inanimate discourse entities. We have already observed that 'neuter' le occurs more readily than its nominative counterpart il as a proposition anaphor, and that it may function, in addition, as a purely predicate anaphor, something which 'neuter' il cannot do. 4. 2. 2. 2

CONTRASTS BETWEEN NEUTER LE AND CELA/~ IN TERMS OF THEIR DIFFERING SYNTACTIC AND REFERENTIAL PROPERTIES

Apart from (54), all the examples of neuter le, y and en presented in 4.2.1.3 involved these pronouns in their predicateanaphoric role. I observed in the course of the discussion a 125

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora large number of properties of this type of 'surface' anaphora, relating them specifically to those of English predicate ellipsis and predicate so, as established in 4.1.1.1 and 4.1.1.2. Perhaps the chief characteristic of this type of anaphora is that the relation is contracted in terms of identity of logical predicates, rather than of surface-syntactic form (as suggested in Sag, 1976, Webber, 1979, and Sag & Hankamer, 1984); and that no 'predicate discourse referent' is necessary in order for the relation to be set up. In the case of

cela/~a,

and one interpretation of neuter

le, y and en, the anaphoric relation is essentially contracted

between the anaphor and an entity discourse referent (a presupposed or asserted proposition), without the necessary mediation of a textually co-present or inferrable linguistic antecedent-trigger. This distinction is expressed particularly clearly, as far as neuter leis concerned, by Moignet (1965:17), who qualifies the 'substitutional' account of pronominal anaphora, by claiming that in Il est sinc~re, je le crois ('He is sincere, I believe{~5'),le is not a 'pro-sentence', as follows: C'est bien un nom que est supplee, le nom du discours obtenu par la nominalisation de la phrase il est sinc~re, puisque, s'il n'y avait pas suppleance, la phrase devrait comporter le signe que, conjonctif qui sert precisement, comme le pronom relatif, a faire ~asser une phrase du plan verbal au plan nominal. 1 We have already seen, indirectly, some differences between and le inasmuch as they are part of the anaphoric phrases faire ~a and le faire, respectively, in 4.2.1.2. It was noted there (as well as in 4. 2. 2 .1), that le , as a neuter, non-demonstrative, accusative and clitic pronoun, possesses a much lower degree of referentiality than does its demonstrative, disjunctive counterpart cela/~a. This diference is reflected in the fact that when le is attached to a verb (e.g. faire) as a pro-clitic element, the resulting expression is one which is internally not fully transitive. This perhaps explains why neuter le has a predilection for co-occurring with verbs which are either 'non-activity' verbs (such as souhaiter, pr~tendre, pr~f~rer, etc.) or are auxiliary or copulative rather than 'full' verbs, in addition to denoting 'non-activity' (such as vouloir, pouvoir~ savoir, devoir, &tre, devenir, sembler, etc.). When it co-occurs with faire, which clearly is an activity verb, its effect is to attenuate the denotation of 'activity' inherent in it, and to mark the expression as a whole as signalling anaphora with a predicate occurring in or inferrable from surrounding discourse. When cela/~a is combined with faire, in NP object (i.e. argument) rather than (en~litic position,

ra

126

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora the result is an internally fully transitive indexical expression, capable of referring deictically as well as anaphorically. The grammatical relation obtaining between verb and pronoun is thus much looser, and the sense as well as syntactic properties of the former are unaffected by those of the latter. The distinction between le faire and faire cela/~a is thus very similar to that between English do so and do it/that.

4.2.2.2.1 The relevance of the coherence constraint

Let us now look at examples in which the antecedenttrigger predicate is introduced by a modal auxiliary verb which otherwise has a use as a 'full' verb, with a corresponding difference in meaning. (63)a

- Dupont sait parfaitement obtenir la confiance de son patron. 'Dupont is perfectly able to gain his boss's confidence'.

b #- En effet, il sait 9a. 'Yes indeed, he knows that (i.e. that it is true)'. c #- En effet, il le sait 'Yes indeed, he knows it.' d (64)a

- En effet, il sait le faire 'Indeed, he knows how to do it'. - Dupont sait que la confiance de son patron lui est acquise. 'Dupont knows that he is assured of his boss's confidence.'

b

- En effet, il sait 9a.

c

- En effet, il le sait.

d #- En effet, il sait le faire. (65)a

Les militants risquent de ne pas suivre la consigne au meeting ce soir. 'The activists are likely not to observe the instructions at tonight's meeting.'

b #- C'est vrai, ils risquent 9a. 'That's true, they are running the risk of that'. c #- C'est vrai, ils le risquent. 'That's true, they are running the risk of it.'

127

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora (66)a

- Jacques risque de se faire tuer en conduisant de la sorte! 'Jacques is running the risk of killing himself by driving like that!'

b

- Oh oui, alors, il risque ~a tout le temps. 'Oh yes, he runs the risk of that all the time.'

c

- C'est vrai qu'il le risque. 'It's true that he runs the risk of it.'

(67)a

-Charles doit trimer avec les examens qu'il prepare •.• Il ne sort plus. 'Charles must be toiling hard with the exams he's revising for ••• He doesn't go out any more.'

b #- C'est evident qu'il doit ~a! 'It's obvious that he owes that!' c #- C'est evident qu'il le doit!' 'It's obvious that he must~!' The sense and value of all the introducing verbs in the (a) examples above - whether as modal auxiliaries or as full verbs, or, in certain circumstances, as either of the two, ambiguity being in principle possible - is determined as a function of the linguistic context in which they occur. However, in the anaphoric clauses (the (b) and (c) examples), where by definition the linguistic context is minimal, the basis upon which to hypothesize the range of possible interpretations of the supporting verbs (all formal repetitions of the introducing verbs used in the antecedent sentences) is severely restricted. Thus, in (63)b, the only sense which sait can assume is 'know (th~t something is the case)'; that is, it must assume its status as a full verb, since it is constructed with the disjunctive demonstrative pronoun ~a, which, as we have seen, always manifests full NP status. In (64)b, the very same clause, giving rise to the same, obligatory interpretation, yields a coherent (unmarked) discourse when understood as being in an anaphoric relation with the proposition expressed by the preceding clause in (64)a, since its independent interpretation is compatible with the contextually salient interpretation of the putative antecedent-trigger predicate as a whole. Incoherence, however, results from an attempt to interpret (63)b as anaphoric to the predicate in (63)a (i.e. obtenir la confiance de son patron), since the single, independent interpretation of the former is not available as a contextually possible interpretation of the latter. 16 In (63)c, le, as we have seen, does not confer the status of transitive verb upon its supporting verb savoir, since it does not have full NP (i.e. 128

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora argument) status itself; nevertheless, it is not sufficient to trigger the modal value which this verb assumes, under its contextually preferred interpretation, in the initial sentence, (63)a. Similarly, the anaphoric clauses (65)b and c may only be interpreted independently such that their supporting verb is a full rather than auxiliary (modal) verb, a state of affairs which again results in incoherence when it is attempted to understand either of the two clauses as being anaphoric to the fully specified predicate occurring in the preceding sentence (65)a. The discourse constituted by (66)a and b or by (66)a and c is, predictably, like that of (64)a and b/c, perfectly coherent and unmarked. Finally, in (67) there is an interesting difference between the (b) and (c) examples, as compared with their counterparts in (63): in (67)b, the presence of 9a obligatorily confers full transitive-verb status upon its supporting verb doit ('owes'); the anaphoric clause thus independently signifies 'he owes it/ that', an interpretation which is not sustainable by the predicate introduced by doit in the initial sentence of (67)a. But in (67)c, the presence of le does not force doit to aesume its full-verb status: indeed, it triggers its interpretation as an intransitive, auxiliary verb. However, as in (63)c, it is the deontic, or root, rather than epistemic sense of the auxiliary which is available here, due to the lack of necessary context sanctioning the latter of the two potential senses. Yet this interpretation still results in incoherence when an attempt is made to understand (67)c as being anaphoric to the fully-specified predicate in (67)a, whose introducing modal auxiliary is preferentially epistemic rather than deontic. 17 Thus the discourse resulting from the combination via anaphora of (67)a and b is incoherent for a different reason than is the one issuing from the anaphoric linking of (67)a and c. The above discussion and examples have pointed to the pervasive influence of context in the setting up of all kinds of anaphoric relations, whether 'strict' or 'discourse', predicate or propositional, or 'deep' or 'surface' in character, as well as to the crucial relevance of referencerelated factors in this respect. These matters will be the subject of the next chapter.

129

Predicate and Pr•opositional Anaphora

NOTES 1. Pullum (1982) gives substantial evidence for the claim that infinitival to is a kind of non-finite auxiliary verb. Cf. also Hudson (1984). 2. Cf., for example, Crymes (1968), who writes of 'replacement' vs. 'representation'; Halliday & Hasan (1976) who distinguish between 'substitution in terms of wording' and 'substitution in terms of meaning'; Hankamer & Sag (1976) who differentiate between 'surface' and 'deep' anaphora, and later, Sag & Hankamer (1984), who refine this distinction in terms of 'ellipsis' and 'modelinterpretive anaphora'; and Bosch (1983) who similarly contrasts 'syntactic agreement' pronouns and 'referential' ones. 3. Three further types of elliptical predicates are those which result from the processes commonly known as 'gapping', 'stripping' and 'sluicing' (see Hankamer & Sag, 1976, for extensive illustration of these processes, as well as Russell (1985) for an interesting recent account of the first of the three), as exemplified, respectively, in (i)-(iii): .

(i) John bought an overcoat, and Sarah { !_

*¢

a hat}.

John bought an overcoat, but not Sarah -r/J; she {b*! ought} a hat. (iii) John managed to stagger horne after the party, though I can't imagine how !· (ii)

The ungrammatical versions of (i) and (ii) show (a) that 'gapping' is restricted to co-ordinated or enumerative contexts, as in (i), and (b) that 'stripping' is limited to adversative contexts, as in (ii). 'Sluicing', as in (iii), involves a relation between sentences. However, as I argued in 4.1.1, sentences are essentially predicative expressions, and so sluicing is regarded as an instance of predicate anaphora. None of these further types of elliptical predicates is discussed here. 4. Webber's notion of 'ellipsis trigger' is not to be confused with my concept of 'antecedent trigger', as used in Chapters 2 and 3 in particular. As I understand it, an 'ellipsis trigger' may be a contextually-derived predicate created by the need to interpret an ellipsed predicate whenever there is some formal-syntactic or semantic-pragmatic discrepancy between the interpretation imposed on the latter by its governing element (e.g. a 'stranded' auxiliary or infinitival to) together with its particular grammatico-referential features (tense, aspect, mood, etc.).on the one hand, and the corresponding type of interpretation sustained by its putative 'antecedent-trigger' (i.e. a co-occurring, fully specified verb phrase). The term 'antecedent-trigger', as I have been using it, denotes the latter type of expression - that is, what has traditionally been understood by the term 'antecedent'. I have been using the latter term, informally, to refer to the actual, contextually-determined interpretation of an anaphor (i.e. it denotes in this usage a semantic/pragmatic entity rather than a formalsyntactic one). I shall continue to place inverted commas around Webber's (1979) term 'ellipsis trigger' whenever I use it. For examples and discussion of this notion, see examples (11)-(20) in the text and the discussion relating to them. 5. I have substituted the crosshatch, '#', for Hankamer's asterisk here. The example is clearly not ungrammatical as a sentence, but rather, incoherent as an utterance in relation to the context-of-utterance specified. In Hankamer & Sag (1976), examples such as these are also prefixed by the crosshatch rather than the asterisk. 6. The proposition 'RJ win the Warrington bye-election' is contextually salient here (particularly for regular readers of The Daily Mail during the weeks leading up to the election itself). See also the discussion on p. 101 in the text. 7. 'In the operation of replacement ("deputizing"), the mind thus separates out the verbal and the nominal components into verbal form and substantive matter in a manner distinct from the way in which the initial occurrence of the expression is understood: it redistributes the conceptual

130

Predicate and Propositional Anaphora substance, almost all of this being expressed by the morpheme le, with the indispensable minimum subsisting in the verb (now a morpheme [i:e. in Moignet's usage, a grammatical rather than a lexical element - FC]) which denotes mere activity.' 8. Such an interpretation is clearly favoured by the contrastive nature of the predication as a whole in this example. This can be shown by comparing (4l)b with (42)b, where there is no implication of a contrast between the states of affairs referred to by the two predications, and which is clearly incoherent as a discourse. 9. It is significant that the English version of (44) involves a gapped verb, verb gapping being the most highly cohesive - or 'surface' sensitive -of the types of 'surface' anaphora described in Hankamer & Sag (1976). In particular, unlike predicate ellipsis (see pp. 89 - 90 above), it is totally excluded from use under pragmatic rather than purely linguistic control. See also Russell (1985) for further discussion of gapping. 10. Carrasco in fact asterisks all three of these examples; but have chosen to prefix the second and third, instead, with the crosshatch, for reasons which are explained on p. 120 in the text (see also note lll. 11. Partir in (55)a is an exception in that it is a strictly intransitive verb, and is therefore not interpretable in such a way that the cooccurring clitic pronoun in a parallel example is anaphoric to a full NP which could have occurred as its direct object, unlike the situation obtaining in the case of the verbs pousser and vivre in (56)a and b. Of course, partir, unlike both pousser and vivre, may take an infinitival complement, as in (i)a. This may not, however, contract a predicate anaphoric relation with neuter le, as shown in (i)b: (i)a -Jean part faire des courses 'Jean is going out to do some shopping' il le part (cf. Oui, i l l part) 'Yes, he is leaving (to do) it'

b~Oui,

12. Cf. for example, Martinon (1927:258): "Autrefois on faisait de i l neutre un usage beaucoup plus etendu encore, et on l'employait dans beaucoupde cas oil nous employons aujourd'hui ce ou cela." ('In the past, neuter i l was used much more extensively, and in many instances where today we use ce cela'). He observes, further, in note 1 on the same page: "Les classiques employaient egalement il comme neutre, pour representer rien, tout ce que, ceci ou cela exprimes anterieurement: Dieu a tout consu avant qU 1 il fut; cette syntaxe ~alement disparu et il ne peut plus rappeler qu 1 une personne ou une chose determinee, ce qui le faitmasculin". ('The classical French writers also used il as a neuter pronoun, anaphoric to rien ('nothing'), tout ce que ('everything which'), ceci ('this') or cela ('that') occurring before it: Dieu a tout con~u avant qu'rr-fut ('God conceived everything before it was'); this synt~x has also disappeared [but note the attested examples in (57) on p. 122 in the text] and il can now only act as anaphor to a specific person or thing, which makes itlmasculine'). 13. Spanish does have a disjunctive non-demonstrative neuter pronoun, namely ello, whose clitic form, corresponding to French le, is lo. -14. Disjunctive pronouns, of course, can only occur in~irect object position in French when uttered with contrastive stress accompanied by high pitch. (60)a would of course be perfectly coherent if the pronoun lui is understood as referring to some contextually available male person~n specific contrast to some other person (cf. C'est lui que Pierre croit, 'It's himi that Pierre believes (not himj/herk, etc.) 1 ). 15. 'It is indeed a nominal which is replaced ('deputized for'), the discourse nominal obtained via the nominalisation of the sentence il est sincere, since, if there were no replacement, the sentence would have--contained the sign que ('that'), a connector which serves precisely, like the relative pronoun, to-transform a sentence from the verbal plane to the

or

nominal'.

16. There is, however, an alternative interpretation of the discourse constituted by (63)a and b (or by (63)a and c): namely, that in which~ or le is anaphoric to the entire proposition expressed by the matrix sentence of (63)a (i.e. '(Duponti knows) that hei· is perfectly able to gain his boss's confidence'). This 1s yet another i lustration of the way in which the coherence principle regulating discourse understanding narrows down the range

131

Predicate and PPopositional Anaphora of potential 'antecedents' or referents for an anaphor. However, note also that the introductory discourse articulator En effet ('Yes, indeed') in (63lb (and c), together with the level of stress and pitch with which sait is uttered (both low, in the unmarked usage), affect the potential anaphoric interpretation of the pronouns here (as also in the anaphoric clauses of (64)-(67)). 17. As in the case of (63)b and c (see note 16), there is an interpretation of the anaphoric clause in (67)c which would render its-integration with (67)a coherent. This interpretation would be expressed by a rising intonation contour up to doit, the nuclear syllable of the tone unit as a whole, followed by a rapid fall in pitch. The interpretation of (67)c as integrated with (67)a would then be: 'It's obvious that Charles must (deontic sense) toil hard with the exams he's revising for' (i.e~f he is to stand a chance of passing them or doing well in them'). As in the case of the analogous type of interpretation of the anaphoric clauses in (63)b and c, the effect here would nevertheless be marked (i.e. creating a 'punning' effect), through the formal repetition of the auxiliary doit (cf. the zeugmatic effect of the surface anaphoric phenomena illustrated in 2(38)a, band c, on p. 30). Under more normal circumstances, the repeated auxiliary or full verb in all of the examples (63)-(67) would be uttered with low pitch and stress. It is this which is primarily responsible for the incoherent variants in these discourses.

132

Chapter Five REFERENCE AND ANAPHORA

5.0

INTRODUCTION

The primary function of anaphora in natural language communication, it may be assumed, is to aid the synthesis by the addressee of a model of a particular universe of discourse, as the discourse itself proceeds (cf., e.g., Webber, 1979, MarslenWilson, Levy & Tyler, 1982, Fox, 1985 1). It serves in this respect an essentially signalling or sign-posting function in indicating, for example, the maintenance of reference to an earlier-established discourse referent for the duration of the current utterance segment, or the inference of a latent discourse referent via an existing one, or the degree of saliency which a discourse referent is taken as assuming within the current utterance segment, or the imposition b~ the speaker of a different referential perspective upon an existing discourse referent. The particular nature of the anaphoric relation selected will further indicate, within its discourse context, whether the segment containing the anaphor is extending-the current 'context space' (cf. Reichman, 1978), or 'episode' (cf. Van Dijk, 1982) - i.e. a locally defined, functional unit of discourse - , or reinstating an earlier 'domain of reference' (as I prefer to call Reichman's 'context space', and Van Dijk's 'episode'), or defining a new one. Furthermore, as we have seen,anaphora of all kinds (whether 'strict' or 'discourse', nominal or predicate) does not simply involve a relation between two expressions (the anaphor and the 'antecedent'), or between an expression and a mentally located entity (the anaphor and a discourse referent), but is an interpretative connexion established between the wider utterance segments containing the antecedent-trigger and the anaphor. Indeed, as Marslen-Wilson, Levy & Tyler (1982: 367) suggest, " ... in utterances containing anaphoric pronouns, the entire utterance is functioning as the referential device". As we saw in Chapters 3 and 4, it is the verb or other predicate of which the anaphor is an argument or a 'modifier' within the 133

Reference and Anaphora anaphoric clause, together with the latter's 'referential' features (e.g. tense, aspect, modality and voice), which primarily determines its potential anaphoric reference, and hence its full contextual interpretation. What is predicated in context of the anaphor becomes especially crucial, of course, in instances where there is no available antecedent-trigger in the surrounding text (the case of so-called 'pragmatically controlled anaphora', or 'exophora'), or where contextual factors rule out the selection of a co-occurring candidate antecedent-trigger (cf., for example, 4(13)~20)). The significance of what is predicated in context of the anaphor was highlighted most recently in the present work by the examples of French predicate anaphora in 4.2.2.2.1, namely 4(63)-(67), as well as the discussion of them on pages 128-129. It is clear, then, that reference and other discourserelated functions are of central importance in the operation of anaphora. The chief purposes of the present chapter are thus to determine certain referential and discourse parameters within which anaphora (particularly discourse anaphora) operates, to establish some of the discourse functions which certain types of anaphoric relations may perform, and to specify certain constraints which these appear to conform to. Section 1 examines the notion 'domain of reference'; section 2 investigates the notion 'discourse referent' and its location within a discourse model via a 'linguistic reflex'; section 3 discusses the relations between deixis and anaphora; and section 4 studies the anaphoric consequences of the relationship between the correlated categories of referential number and gender, as well as the distinction between clitic and nonclitic pronominal anaphora in French. 5.1

THE NOTION 'DOMAIN OF REFERENCE'

Reference is clearly a communicative function which is performed by speakers/writers in co-operation with their addressees, in terms both of some presupposed discourse context and of some specific, wider communicative goal. Anaphora, as was suggested in 5.0, is one means of constructing, maintaining or changing a domain of reference wiuhin a developing discourse model. The notion 'domain of reference' has been invoked, more or less precisely, under many different names in the literature on discourse. Grimes (1975:Ch.20.1), for instances, writes of the notion 'field of reference' which he appears to view as having a very broad scope, encompassing the construction by the speaker/ writer of a homogeneous, internally consistent universe, whether fictional or factual. 134

Reference and Anaphora In more specifically discourse terms, a domain of reference may be viewed as corresponding to the unit of discourse termed 'episode' by Van Dijk (1982), or 'paragraph' (a unit which the author points out should not be confused with the typographically defined unit of the same name) by Hinds (1979), or 'context space' by Reichman (1978). As far as I can tell, there is no essential difference between these three terms. All of them refer to functionally-defined units of discourse of any variety, whether realised in the spoken or the written medium. Sanford and Garrod (1981:118) also use the term 'domain of reference', but in the sense of a 'contextually available field of potential referents' for a particular indexical expression. This is the sense in which Hawkins (1978) and Stenning (1978) use the term 'domain of interpretation'. 'Discourse', I take to designate the hierarchically organized sequences of utterance-acts which jointly accomplish (or are intended to accomplish) some specific overall communicative goal. A 'domain of reference' (cf. 'episode'/ 'context space', etc.) corresponds to one, or more, utterance-acts which purport(s) to realise a 'local' goal as one stage in the attempt to achieve the more 'macro' communicative goal. 'Text', on the other hand, refers to the sequence of verbal and non-verbal (i.e. paralinguistic) signals of the utterance-acts being performed, as well as of the nature of their interrelations; however, a 'text' cannot pretend to that status unless and until the signals in question have been interpreted by the addressee, relative to some utterance context. Since an 'episode' is not defined in formal terms, it is a unit of discourse rather than text. There are indeed certain textual-grammatical signals which mark episode boundaries, as Van Dijk (1982:181) points out (as do Hinds, 1979 and Reichman, 1978, in relation to their respective concepts); but these are symptoms of rather than necessary conditions for the existence of the functional unit itself. Van Dijk defines 'episode' as a coherent sequence of propositions, indicating (ibid., p.l80) that "the respective propositions should denote facts in some possible world, or related possible worlds, that are - for example, conditionally- related". One condition for a particular sequence of propositions being coherent is, as Van Dijk (p.l80) points out (cf. also Parisi & Castelfranchi, 1977), that they should function together, pragmatically, in realizing a communicative goal from the speaker's or writer's point of view. Another way of stating this is to say, as Van Dijk does (p.l80), that the sequence should not only be locally coherent (in the sense indicated on pp.l36-7)but also globally coherent. In Van Dijk's terms, this means that the particular sequence of propositions should be subsumable "under some more global macroproposition" (ibid., p.l80). A macroproposition is a more general or abstract proposition which is derived from one or more (micro-)propositions by 'macrorules', so that at a certain level of abstraction, 135

Reference and Anaphora a particular sequence of macropropositions will constitute a summary of the discourse from which each of them is derived. The operation of these macrorules is recursive, up to the point where only one macroproposition remains: this is thus understood as the topic of the discourse itself. One of the local conditions for the existence of an episode stated by Van Dijk (p.l77) is 'thematic unity', characterised by "identical participants, time, location or global event or action". This is precisely the criterion adopted by Hinds (1979) for the existence in discourse of a 'paragraph' (a unit of discourse which is independent of the medium of expression, and which, as already pointed out, does not necessarily correspond to a written paragraph). Hinds (1979:136) claims that the paragraph, in this sense, is a "unit of speech or writing that maintains a uniform orientation (spatially, temporally, thematically or in terms of participants)". The notion of 'maintaining a uniform orientation' here is crucial. It is also implicit in Grosz's (1978) notion of 'focusing', an activity which is, it would seem, a prerequisite for successful reference, and which speakers/writers (and, so they assume, their addressees) perform in order to establish a local discourse topic. Reichman (1978) has developed an analogous notion of 'context space' on the basis of Grosz's concept of 'focus space' (a span of discourse during which one particular entity is being centrally focused upon, and which serves to realise a specific discourse goal). Reichman, like Grosz (1978), bases her notion of context space on data provided by spontaneous spoken dialogues (conversations; Grosz's analysis was based on 'task-oriented' dialogues). She gives the following broad definition of 'context space' on p. 288 (fn.S): "Roughly, a group of utterances referring to a single episode or issue forms the basis for a context space", specifying further that "Two utterances are related by either being part of the same context space or by the relationship between their respective context spaces". (p.288). Reichman's contribution to this notion is to have developed a set of coherence relations in terms of which context spaces can combine ~o form higher-level discourse units, to have suggested a range of constantly-changing 'states' (see note 11 below) in which context spaces can be at some particular point in the development of the discourse, and to have put forward a set of 'focus level assignment rules' which are partially dependent on the assignment to a context space of a particular value from each of the preceding two parameters. Context spaces (of which Reichman claims there are just two types, namely 'issue' and 'event') are in fact chiefly defined in terms of their potential discourse-functional, local coherence relationships (these are listed on p.323 as 'Illustrative and Restatement Relations', 'Interruption and Return Relations', 'Subissue and Joining 136

Reference and Anaphora Relations', 'Respecification Relations', and a relation of 'Total Shift'). As Fox (1985) points out, however, these constitute but a small part of the set of potential discourse relations in terms of which context spaces(or'rhetorical structures' in Fox's scheme) may be integrated to form a higher-level discourse unit. Apart from the relation of 'Total Shift', these simple or complex relations between two or more context spaces of the appropriate types would appear to signal the existence of high-level discourse units serving to fulfil communicative goals which are relevant at the macro-discourse level. Thus the context spaces linked via each of these types of discourse-functional relation are mutually accessible: consequently, the relation in terms of which one or more succeeding context space is or are interpreted relative to the initial one may be viewed as extending the domain of reference established by the latter. This interpretation of these types of relation between successive context spaces is borne out by the fact that, according to Reichman (1978:313-314), in the great majority of such succeeding context spaces, those entities that were assigned a high 'focus level' in the initial context space (i.e. were viewed by the speaker as having the greatest importance or relevance in the issue or event concerned) do not require re-introduction by means of an expression bearing a high reference potential (a proper noun or a definite description) within the succeeding context space; that is, they may continue to be referred to by means of pronouns (or indeed, by zero), a category of referring expressions whose use reflects the 'high focus' status of their referents, relative to the context space in which they occur. In the case of the 'Total Shift Relation', however, "the entities of the new context space (must) be initially referred to by name or description- not by pronominal form (sic). This is the case even if the last reference was in an immediately preceding sentence, but not in the same context space." (ibid., p.313). Such a relation between context spaces marks a significant break in level of coherence (the nature of the coherence obtaining between the two context spaces being globally rather than locally defined), and indeed, as Reichman (p.297) observes, it involves the introduction of a new (local discourse) topic. Thus we can say that, unlike the other context space relationships discussed by Reichman, the Total Shift Relation involves the establishment of a distinct domain of reference, where new time and space co-ordinates are set up, (potentially) new entities are introduced, or one or more of the entities referred to within the preceding domain of reference are re-introduced as if they were new entities, and the speaker's/writer's perspective upon such entities, as well as upon any other components of the preceding domain of reference which may have been carried over, shifts (apart from mode of reference to 137

Refer>ence and Anaphor>a entities, this may be signalled by differences in tense and aspect). I will discuss Reichman's approach to the assignment of focus levels to entities within context spaces in 5.3. One example of the 'Total Shift Relation' is given on p.313 as Excerpt (9): "The first time i t happened I felt very embarrassed. Because that must have been 3. an uncomfortable feeling for her ["Her" refers to a woman named Sally who is the main actor with which this context space is concerned].

(l) D: l.

2.

S: 4.

5.

6.

Cl

And you can't even pick up for her because you have no idea where she stopped.

D: 7. 8. 9.

And I don't want to say, "I'm sorry for being so rude and not listening." But I, uh, just let it happen.

5:10. 11.

What's the relation like between your father and Sally now?"

'Total Shift Relation ]

(C1-C2)

C2

In the initial context space of the discourse fragment, an event is discussed which involved speaker D and Sally. Even though there is variation in the tense of the predications contained in it, the utterances from line 1 to line 9 inclusive still constitute a unitary context space. From line 10, however, a major shift occurs with the direct question re-introducing an entity referred to in an earlier context space, by means of a definite description (your> father>),and the individual to whom a high focus level had been assigned in the immediately preceding context space, Sally, by means of a proper name. Notice also the tense change to the simple present (from the definite past tense of the immediately preceding utterance) and the use of the 'pure' deictic time adverbial now. As far as pronominal anaphora is concerned, the effect of the notion 'domain of reference' may be illustrated with the aid of the following examples (both written and constructed) taken from Reinhart (1983: 8l)(Fox, 1985 claims that the conditions under which pronouns, as opposed to full noun phrases (proper nouns or definite descriptions), may be used in discourse are more restrictive in written, monologic texts than in spoken conversational (i.e. dialogic) ones): (2)a (R's (68),Ch.3) In Ben's picture of Rosa, she is riding a horse. b (R's (73)a) # 2 In Ben's picture of Rosa, she found a scratch. Reinhart attempts to explain the difference in acceptability between the two examples essentially in terms of syntactic 138

Reference and Anaphora

structure: in (2)a, the preposed PP In Ben's picture can be shown to be sentential - that is, attached to

the topmost S node (or in this case, 'E', for 'Expression', as Reinhart, 1983:70, suggests); thus, it is only indirectly connected to the following S node, and the pronoun she does not c-command it. Hence, according to Reinhart's system, 3 Rosa and she may be interpreted as coreferential. In (2)b, however (an example which, as observed in note 2, Reinhart asterisks; yet this cannot be correct, in view of Reinhart's later treatment of non-bound pronominal anaphora- see note 3 ), the same preposed PP must be verb-phrasal, since the verb of the following sentence is sub-categorised for a (locative) PP; hence, it must be dominated in surface structure by COMP, itself dominated by S, whose other daughter node is the S directly dominating the pronoun she. This means that, according to Reinhart's extended definition of c-command, 4 the proper noun is in the syntactic domain of the pronoun, and so (at the sentence-level at least) they cannot be interpreted as coreferential. However, a more significant explanation for the difference in question may be, as Reinhart (pp.75-80) herself intimates, in terms of the examples' being viewed as text sentences (i.e. potentially utterable within some context) rather than system sentences (cf. Lyons, 1977) (Reinhart herself does not appear to recognise explicitly this valuable distinction, at least in the work in question). Thus in both instances, the preposed PP functions as Theme (providing the frame of reference in terms of which some Predication is to be interpreted- cf. Dik, 1978: 140). Correlating with the syntactic (or more precisely, grammatical) difference between the preposed PP in (2)a and that in (2)b in relation to their respective predications is a corresponding difference in pragmatic status: the looser grammatical relation contracted by the sentential PP in (2)a is congruent with a (most natural) interpretation of the example as a whole as a potential utterance such that the PP is the Theme to the entire sentence following it as Predication (or Rheme); whereas the more highly integrated grammatical relation contracted by the verb-phrasal PP in (2)b appears to favour a textual interpretation such that the PP and the pronominal subject of the following sentence are functioning as joint Themes to the Rheme represented by the VP of that sentence (cf. Reinhart, ibid., pp.76-78 and note 13,pp.90-91 for convincing justification of this analysis). Thus i~ (2)a, Rosa's riding a horse is understood as being located within, or belonging to, Ben's picture (cf. the integrative function of Themes, correctly viewed by, amongst others, Parisi & Castelfranchi 1977 and Van Dijk & Kintsch 1983 as playing an important role in the actual processing of discourse); while in (2)b, finding a scratch is construed as an action both located in Ben's picture 139

Referenc:e and Anaphora and applying to Rosa, whence (I would argue) the incoherence

of (2)b under this textual interpretation. Reinhart (1983) does not appear to take into account the nature of what is predicated in context of an anaphor in the assessment of the range of its potential antecedents. In (2)a, given that the preposed PP is most naturally interpreted as Theme to the Predication of the entire following sentence, the referent of the latter's subject must be located within (or associated with some entity located within) the domain of reference which it has established. This is indeed the case, where the entire predication is about the contents of a picture (no doubt the present tense and progressive aspect with which the verb is constructed here contribute to this interpretation, where the painting or photograph in question has 'frozen' an ongoing depicted event). In (2)b, on the other hand, not only is the verb telic (unlike the one in (2)a), but it is constructed with the simple past tense, expressing perfective aspect. Hence, the most natural interpretation of the clause following the PP, itself an integral part of it, is such that some external agent has found a scratch on the surface of the picture, which is thereby viewed as an object. The incoherence of the interpretation whereby the agent of an action in the actual world is at the same time a figurative representation within a pictured world is heightened by the fact that the subject pronoun in (2)b is a Theme, and thus is partially independent, pragmatically, both from the other Theme of this discourse segment (the preposed PP) and of the predicate of its clause. Coupled with the grammatical status of the PP as part of that clause's VP, this makes it less probable that the predication would be construed as located within, and thus pragmatically subordinate to (see Dik, 1978), the PP as one of its Themes. Note also that, were she in (2)b replaced by a more highly referential NP such as the girl or a repetition of the proper name Rosa (thus presupposing either a low or a medium level of focus, respectively, for the corresponding discourse referent, according to Reichman, 1978:312), the discourse fragment as a whole would be perfectly coherent. In (2)a, on the other hand, the greater degree of grammatical independence of the PP (together with the semantico-referential properties of the predication already noted) enables she to be construed naturally as a topic: (see Dik, 1978: Ch.6 for arguments in favour of a theoretical distinction between Theme, in this sense, and topic). The role of clausal topics is precisely to indicate the aspect of the Theme, or node in the Frame, in Frame Semantics (see, e.g. Bullwinkle, 1977 for discussion and exemplification of this), with respect to which the predication is to be integrated. Thus, while in (2)a the domain of reference is co-extensive with the sentence as a whole, in (2)b (under the incoherent interpretation we are considering here) there are two such domains, neither of which is (easily) accessible to the other. Under the other, coherent, interpretation of (2)b, on the other hand, she

140

Reference and Anaphora would be construed as anaphoric to some salient discourse referent (Freda, for example) established by previous discourse or through the context-of-utterance. In this case, Rosa in the PP would be uttered with low stress and pitch, being itself topical, and Ben might be uttered contrastively (i.e. where, for example, Freda is a member of a panel of judges in a competition of portraits of Rosa, and (2)b is part of a report of Freda's list of judgements on the various portraits). Reinhart (1983) however, does not specify discourse contexts of this kind for her examples, in spite of the fact that she is invoking considerations of Theme and Topic in the course of her basically structural analysis. The contrast in coherence exhibited by (2)a and b is of the same essential kind as those which we saw in 4.2.2.2.1 (pp. 127 -128) in the case of French predicate anaphora, where contextual aspects of the putatively anaphoric clauses (viz. examples 4(63)b,c 4(64)d,4(65)b,c and 4(67)b,c) ir>.hibited their being linked via pronominal anaphora with (i.e. extending the domain of reference of) a preceding clause containing a lexically fully-specified predicate. (See also the coherence contrasts illustrated in 3(18)a-i, pp.54-5 and in 3(19)a,b, p.55, in connection with English relative clauses). 5.2

DISCOURSE REFERENTS AND THEIR INSCRIPTION WITHIN THE DISCOURSE MODEL

Webber (1979), one of the most important large-scale works on discourse anaphora (in English) to date, lists the range of potential discourse referents (a term introduced in this sense by Karttunen, 1976) as follows (1979,pp.l5-20,Ch.l): individuals, sets, stuff (i.e. substances), generics, prototypes, actions/ events/states/propositions, descriptions, and predicates. 5 To this list we may add the 'context space constituents' which Reichman (1978:304) lists, namely 'location', 'time' and 'duration period'. Webber claims, as I do, that discourse anaphora cannot be understood in purely linguistic terms (1979: vi), but must be conceived of in terms of its contribution to the establishment and maintenance of the addressee's discourse model, in the synthesis of which the speaker is attempting to direct him/her via the discourse itself. The discourse (including the text itself - i.e. the transcribable record of the communicative act) is thus seen as a set of tacit instructions to the addressee for synthesizing a discourse model which matches as closely as possible that of the speaker. Discourse models consist of 'structured collection(s) of entities', in which it is precisely the latter which are "accessible to definite anaphora" (ibid.,p.vii). Webber allows for the possibility, which we have seen operating in examples 2(36) and 2(37) in particular, that the anaphor may actually trigger the introduction of a discourse entity into the discourse 141

Reference and Anaphora model. Indeed, one might go a step further and claim that it is the speaker's reference to a discourse entity via an anaphor which confirms and consolidates its existence within his or her discourse model (this is also stated in Karttunen 1976: 366,though its full implications are not taken up). The type of anaphor which is chosen, as we briefly saw in 5.1, will further signal the degree of focus or saliency which its referent is assumed to have been assigned by the speaker, and also the nature of the discourse relationship which the current utterance is to be understood as expressing in relation to the one in which an earlier reference to the same entity was made. Discourse entities may be 'evoked' (in Webber's terms) by the discourse (through explicit linguistic mention, through inference, or through non-linguistic perception, perhaps aided by paralinguistic means), or may be latent within the discourse model due to universal or particular knowledge of entities and the relations holding amongst them. 6 In both types of case (textual evocation or latent existence), the discourse entity concerned is located, or inscribed, within the discourse model in Webber's system in terms of a description (an 'invoking' description in the case of textually-evoked discourse entities, and a 'prior' description in that of latent ones). While the referent of a definite (non 'strict') anaphor is a discourse entity, its antecedent is the description (based on, but not identical to, what I am calling its textuallyoccurring antecedent-trigger, where there is one) by means of which it has been introduced and established in the relevant discourse model (ibid.,p.22,Ch.l). The description, if it is an 'invoking' one, is thus the means by which the (form and) interpretation of the anaphor is anchored to the immediate discourse context. The 'antecedent', as traditionally conceived, is merely one means by which a discourse entity may be 'evoked' into the discourse model: that is, it serves as the core of an invoking description constructed on the basis of the context in which the 'antecedent' (here, 'antecedent-trigger') occurs, thereby introducing a new discourse entity. This approach thus accounts, in principle, for those instances which, as we saw in Chapter 2, do not include an easily delimitable 'antecedent' segment (in the traditional sense of this term); for cases where the apparent 'antecedent' is merely a trigger fGr -a description specifying a discourse referent (as in 2(36) and 2(37)); and for instances of antecedentless anaphora where the anaphor's discourse referent is introduced via focusing on some aspect of the non-linguistic discourse context. The notion of 'invoking' or 'prior' description is thus crucial for an adequate account of discourse anaphora. I shall use the term 'linguistic reflex of a discourse referent' for this description. Given the ability of the latter concept to enable one to account satisfactorily for each of the three potentially problematic cases listed above (and others like them), as well as the independent need for it in handling so-called"'one'-anaphora" 7 , 142

Referenae and Anaphora it would appear that the traditional notion of 'antecedent' (a surface-syntactic constituent in terms of which the full sense and reference of an anaphor may be specified) is entirely superfluous. This move is indeed cogently argued for in Wiese (1983), who claims that anaphora (including so-called 'bound' anaphora) is neither a grammatical nor indeed a relational (presumably, in the sense of'involving an essential relation between two textually-occurring expressions') phenomenon at all. In the case of what I have been calling 'strict' anaphora (a category which includes the sub-types discussed in the literature under the heading of 'bound anaphora'), we have seen in Chapter 3 that the anaphors concerned do not correspond to logical arguments but rather to operators which instruct the addressee to perform some operation upon the verbs upon which they depend, which then select the argument to which they apply as a complex function. The process is semantic rather than purely syntactic in nature (though it is evidently constrained by grammatical factors), and, like discourse anaphora, its interpretation is clearly bound by pragmatic considerations. Hence, 'strict' anaphora is neither 'grammatical' (in the narrow sense in which, for example, agreement is), nor is it (directly) relational in nature. Thus the notion 'antecedent' in respect of strict anaphora, though it may be assignable to some delimitable surface constituent, no longer has the same content as it traditionally did. The essential difference between 'strict' and 'discourse' anaphora, then, is that the latter type, but not the former, requires a connexion with an appropriate discourse referent which either previously or subsequently exists within the particular discourse model. Having established that the ostensibly central element in the operation of anaphora, the 'antecedent', is theoretically dispensible, I believe we are justified in taking the further step of saying that the anaphor, far from being a static, predictable and subordinate term in a textual relation (as it has been viewed in traditional, generative - whether of the transformational or interpretivist varieties -, or Cohesion-oriented approaches (see Halliday & Hasan, 1976 for the classical statement of the last-mentioned of these)), is in fact a 'dynamic' discourse-signalling device, performing on the pragmatic level a role analogous to that fulfilled by operators on the logicosemantic level. Other expressions performing a similar discourse-signalling role are certain types of adverbs (e.g. moreover, however, anyway) and conjunctions (e.g. one use of but). This role is already apparent in the condition imposed by Karttunen (1976:366) on the existence of a discourse referent within a discourse model, to the effect that it should have sanctioned at least one reference to it by an anaphor. It is even more apparent in those instances in which, for example, the anaphor is instrumental in triggering the transition to saliency of a discourse referent whose existence in the discourse model 143

Reference and Anaphora was only latent at the point in the discourse when the anaphor occurs. I shall be discussing further examples of this latter type in the remainder of this chapter as well as in Chapter 6. But above all, as we shall see in more detail in 5.3 and 5.4, its 'discourse-operator' role is most in evidence in the kind of referential perspective which it enables the speaker to (re-) assign to the discourse referent to which it refers. As before, I shall continue to use the term 'antecedent-trigger' in referring to what would traditionally be called 'antecedents'. Karttunen (1976) made provision for the introduction into a discourse model of two basic types of discourse referent, depending on the nature of the discourse context in which the indefinite NP 8 serving to introduce them occurs. Whether the discourse referent is a 'permanent' or a 'short-term' one will be dependent on the nature of the domain of reference within which both the indefinite NP ('antecedent-trigger', in my terminology) and the anaphor are interpreted. Karttunen's examples of both types can be viewed as falling within transparent or opaque domains of reference, respectively. Opaque environments are those which are created by various 'modal' operators (e.g. negation, 'world-creating' complement-taking verbs, counterfactuals, quantifiers bearing wide scope). Such domains of reference are 'intensional' in nature,so that, for example, if an expression occurring within them is replaced by another which, out of context, may be used to pick out the same referent (i.e. the two would be extensionally equivalent), then either the truth conditions of the sentences will not be identical, or there will be an effect of incoherence. Transparent environments are those in which such a substitution preserves both truth conditions and coherence. Seuren (1985: 408ff.) draws a similar distinction to the one being developed here in terms of the notion 'domain of reference', in differentiating between 'discourse domains' and 'intensional subdomains'. In an opaque environment, which is essentially an intensional context, a referring expression will undergo a reduction in its degree of potential referentiality - that is, it will be interpreted in a more predicative than referential sense, its predicative properties being thereby highlighted (cf. also 4.2.1.3, pp.ll3- 116). It is no doubt because of their restriction to referentially opaque environments that Karttunen defined short-term discourse referents as 'nonspecific' entities. Furthermore, because of the fact that their occurrence within a referentially opaque environment means that, unlike 'permanent' discourse referents, they do not endure throughout the discourse in which they were first established, they may be 'boosted' by means of an anaphoric reference back to them which is effected within a modally equivalent domain of reference in relation to the one in which 144

Reference and Anaphora the expression which served to introduce them first occurred. One of Karttunen's examples of this is (3)a, to which I have added the (b) version: (3)

(K's (27))

Mary wants to marry a rich man.

(a) He must be a banker. (b) He is a banker. Note first that, given the counterfactual, intensional domain of reference set up by the 'world-creating' verb want in the initial sentence of this discourse (under the normal or 'default' interpretation of this verb, when it is constructed with an infinitival complement), the modal auxiliary must in the second must be interpreted in its root, or deontic, rather than epistemic sense, in order to preserve coherence as a discourse: to assign the epistemic sense to must here would be to make of the referent of its subject, he, a presupposition of actual existence, which would clash with the lack of such a presupposition in the case of the referent of its putative antecedenttrigger, a rich man, interpreted (under the most natural reading) as falling within the scope of want. Only under the deontic sense of must could the pronoun he be construed as boosting the short-term discourse referent 'any entity such that it is both rich and a man' (i.e. 'Vx (M)x & (R)x~, introduced through the initial sentence. But must (be} in the (a) version, and is in the (b) one, may still be understood in such a way that a presupposition of the actual existence of the referent of he may hold (i.e. where must (be} in the (a) version is epistemic rather than deontic in modal value). Such an interpretation (which is obligatory, of course, in the case of is in the (b) version) will force the (potentially ambiguous) NP a rich man in the initial sentence of the example to assume the specific, referential interpretation as the antecedent of he. This is possible since the speaker of (3) may assume control of the indefinite NP, having in mind a particular individual whose identity is already established for him, though not (he assumes) for his addressee (hence the indefinite status of the NP in question). These examples illustrate how the process of interpretation of a discourse anaphor, which must be in terms of the minimal domain of reference in which it functions (that is, the clause which immediately contains it) can effect a re-interpretation of a preceding discourse segment which had initially been assigned a 'default' interpretation, in the absence of further constraining context (cf. also 4.2.2.2.1). Webber's (1979) system of representation, indeed, allows for this typically dynamic behaviour of discourse anaphors by allowing discourse referents to be incompletely specified, or to have more than one 145

Reference and Anaphora invoking description (or linguistic reflex) simultaneously (cf. also Karttunen, 1977). Webber (1980) underlines this active role of the anaphor, together with its immediate discourse context, and underpinned by the coherence principle of discourse interpretation (cf. Charolles, 1983), by means of an interesting example (I have added the versions in 4(c)): (4)a

(W' s (2l)a, 1980)

Bill didn't marry a blonde.

b

(W' s (2l)b, 1980)

She had red hair.

c

Bill didn't marry.

~ ~#She is blonde. She is now in prison.

Webber points out that the scope of negation in English is potentially ambiguous (for example, in (4)a it is either the existence of a (blonde) woman such that Bill married her, or the blondeness of such a woman, that is being denied). Thus, it is "only when it becomes necessary to justify a referent for she in sentence (4)b [numbering changed] [that] ••• a particular scoping [is] forced on us" (1979:149). Though Webber does not make this explicit, the reason for this is that, as in the case of (3)b, contextual features of the anaphoric clause (4)b assign a presupposition of actual (specific) existence to the human referent of she. When it is attempted to integrate the assertion constituted by (4)b into its immediate discourse context (the denial expressed by means of (4)a),the coherence constraint will force the negation in (4)a to be interpreted as having narrow scope, bearing upon the attribute of 'blondeness' and not upon the existence of a specific female individual. Note in this connection that the intonation contour assigned to both clauses in their spoken realization will indicate the scope of the negation in (4)a: a sharp fall-rise pitch movement coupled with a high· level of stress on blonde here, for example, would unmistakably indicate the 'narrow scope' interpretation just described. Thus, in order to maintain discourse coherence, the adjective red in the anaphoric clause in (4)b would have to be assigned contrastive stress and pitch. The evident incoherence of the first version of (4)c is due to the fact that, though the predicate 'marry' is a twoplace predicate, and so in principle provides a potential argument which might serve as a discourse referent which the anaphor might instantiate via inference, there is no surface predicate realising this argument which might act as an 'anchor' to the predicate blonde in the anaphoric clause, through a relation of Contrast for example, as in (4)a and b. There is simply no (apparent) coherence relation in terms of which the first anaphoric clause in (4)c might be integrated into its discourse context, the initial sentence of that example. Such a relation is, however, readily available in the case of the second anaphoric clause in (4)c: here, the clause 146

Reference and Anaphora as a whole may be construed as the provision by the speaker of a reason for the state of affairs asserted in the initial, referentially dominant (thematic) clause. Following the successful integration of this second anaphoric clause into its discourse context, a 'permanent' discourse referent (in Karttunen's 1976 terms) is thenceforth available to the participants for further elaboration. The situation is thus somewhat more complex (as well as more theoretically interesting) than Karttunen's original analysis implied. His (1976) data and discussion seem to suggest that anaphora is well-formed to the extent that both antecedent-trigger and pronominal anaphor refer to a discourse referent within the same, or an equivalent, domain of reference, or possible world. This is equivalent to claiming, rightly, that pronominal anaphora serves as a means of indicating the extension of a particular domain of reference. But transparent and opaque domains are not equivalent in this respect: for the incoherent examples cited by Karttunen and others are exclusively ones in which a pronominal anaphor referring within a transparent domain is construed as anaphoric to an antecedenttrigger referring within an opaque one (as, for example, in the first version of (4)c). The opposite relationship is not exemplified; indeed, it would not result in incoherence, since 'permanent' discourse referents, being presupposed by the speaker to have actual existence, do not require subsequent anaphoric reference, unlike short-term ones, in order to endure throughout a particular discourse segment. The degree of referentiality of expressions introducing a 'permanent' discourse referent, since they occur within referentially transparent contexts which are asserted by the speaker, is evidently higher than that of expressions which create a 'short-term' discourse referent. Moreover, 'short-term' discourse referents, as DeCarrico (1982) points out, may be more or less specific, according to the 'strength' of the modal domain of reference in which they refer (viz. 'possibility' < 'probability' < 'certainty', 1982:11). In addition, 'permanent' discourse referents correspond, by definition, to 'spatio-temporally' located entities (to use Thrane's 1980:2629 term), a type of location which is possible only if a prior 'categorial' location has taken place- that is, if a specific category of entity has been set up. This category, an intensional entity, is thus thereby potentially available for an expression ofthe appropriate type to refer back to, providerl that the context in which such an expression occurs is also intensional. This is the case with generic they in (5) and ceux-lb ('these') in (6): (5) A: John eventually managed to find a plumber yesterday. B: Did he? They're really hard to come by nowadays, aren't they? 147

Reference and Anaphora (6)

" .• C'etait un truand chevronne, et ceux-l~ doivent faire l'objet de la plus rigoureuse severite" (Le Mende Dimanche, 7-8.8.83,p.6). 'He was an experienced (i.e. a regular) crook, and these should be subject to the most rigorous punishment'.

DeCarrico's (1982:14) definition of 'semantic contradiction' (SC) is as follows: (7)

(D's (26)) SC arises if (a) an indefinite NP1 is in the scope of a Modal Hierarchy item [see categories above, p.l47 - FC] and its intended coreferent [i.e. anaphor - FC] NP2 is not, or if (b) a pronoun is in the scope of a MH item A and its antecedent is in the scope of a MH item B which is lower on the MH than A •

What both types have in common is the condition that (1982:6) "a pronoun cannot be 'stronger' [i.e. more specific in reference] than its antecedent". This provision strongly recalls Jackendoff's (1972) 'Thematic Hierarchy' condition on English reflexive pronouns (discussed in 3.1.1 above, pp.41-42) to the effect that the case role realised by the pronoun cannot be higher on the relevant hierarchy of functional case relations than that realised by its 'antecedent'. However, (8) below, an attested (though perhaps somewhat odd) example, is arguably a counter-example: (8)

"College plague of royal rat pack [Article about the hounding of Jesus College, Cambridge by the popular Press on Prince Andrew's start as an undergraduate there] •... The press went into further paroxysms on discovering that the prince would share his staircase with women [in italics in the text], thus enabling it to combine royalty with sex. Several¢ were traced to their homes, .•. " (The Sunday Times, 9.10.83, p.5).

Here, though ostensibly the domain of reference in which the antecedent-trigger is interpreted is incompatible with the one in which the anaphor occurs (an instance of 'descriptionsubstitution', as I am calling it (see note 7): cf. Webber's 1979 "'one'-anaphora"), incoherence resulting from an attempt to extend the domain of reference of the initial sentence via anaphora, this is in fact not the case. For the modal auxiliary would here is not 'world-creating' or counterfactual, but is equivalent in value to the auxiliary was to, expressing 148

Reference and Anaphora definite futurity-in-the-past. Hence, although the antecedent trigger women establishes a categorial rather than spatiatemporal location (in Thrane's 1980 terms), the sentence in question does presuppose(but does not assert) that the intensional correlates of specific (spatia-temporally located) women exist (or will exist) within the domain of reference in question. This latent presupposition is translated into an inference of actual spatia-temporal existence via the anaphor several ¢ and its containing clause as a whole. The discourse referent of this anaphor is clearly an 'inferrable', in Prince's (1981) terminology (cf. also Hannay, 1985); that is, an entity which the speaker believes the addressee can infer '~ia logical - or, more commonly, plausible - reasoning, from entities already Evoked or from other Inferrables" (1981:236). As such, it is neither wholly 'New' (from the addressee's point of view), nor wholly Evoked (or 'Given', to use Halliday's 1967 terms), but shares in both of these discourse properties. As an 'inferrable', then, the anaphor several¢ here establishes, on the basis of its containing predication, a new discourse referent in terms of an already existing one; at the same time, the anaphor represents a new sub-topic (cf. Hannay, 1985) and introduces a new (but accessible) domain of reference whose relation to the immediately preceding one is (arguably) that of Reichman's (1978) 'Sub-Issue' Relation. Thus, yet again we have an instance where the situation is more complex and more subtle than standard theoretical accounts assume. Only by taking into account the full discourse context can the nature of the anaphoric relationship be properly specified. 5.2.1 Linguistic reflexes of discourse referents It is Webber (1979) which, to my knowledge, provides the most extensive formulation of linguistic reflexes of discourse referents ('invoking/prior descriptions for discourse entities', in her terminology). The formulation of 'invoking descriptions' (IDs) is effected in terms of a version of the predicate calculus, involving restricted quantification (see 3.1.3, pp. 57-58 above). In her system, each sentence from the incoming discourse (as well as each clause, within a multi-clause sentence) is tagged with a number indicating its sequential position in the text, and is provided with a surface-syntactic parsing, following Jackendoff's (1977) X notation system. This then constitutes the input to a preliminary semantic interpretation, termed 'Level 1 representation' (1979:Ch.2,27,61). This representation makes explicit the semantic information derivable from the surface structure parse tree (e.g. the possible scopes of any quantifiers present) and from the lexicon (e.g. the function-argument structure, functional case structure, and the selection restrictions imposed on the associated arguments, of the verbs present), as well as the mapping between functionargument structure and syntactic structure. Any anaphoric 149

Reference and Anaphora expressions present in the parse tree (e.g. personal pronouns, ellipsed predicates, 'description-substitutes') remain unresolved in the Level 1 representation. It is the 'Level 2 representation' which purports to capture the dynamic nature of discourse, and it is from this level of semantic representation that 'textually-evoked' IDs are formed. Here, any ambiguous scopes of quantifiers are resolved; unresolved definite third person pronouns are checked to see whether their most likely interpretation is in terms of a discourse referent, a bound variable, or a 'parameterized' entity (a local discourse referent (cf. Karttunen's 1976 'short-term' discourse referents) which is 'parameterized' by a variable, itself bound by a quantifier bearing wide scope); in the first and third of these cases, the pronoun in question is replaced by its corresponding discourse entity name ('e1', 'e2', etc.); any ellipsed verb phrases (marked 'P?' (for 'Predicate')) are resolved, thereby making possible the formulation of IDs as well as the resolution of any pronouns contained within the clauses in question; and a variety of other referentially relevant semantic or pragmatic factors are determined and made explicit at this level of representation (cf. Webber, 1979:Ch.2,27-28, 60-67). Once all these aspects of the Level 2 representation have been determined, IDs for the discourse entities which that representation makes available can be formulated. (The 'Level 1'/'Level 2 1 distinction here would appear to correspond to the semantics/pragmatics distinction). All IDs are definite, expressing the fact that, following the introduction of their associated discourse referent, the latter is assumed by the speaker to be established for the addressee within his counterpart discourse model. Over and above this property, IDs differ depending on whether their discourse referent has been invoked via a definite or an indefite NP (this in turn is a function of the differing logical and pragmatic properties of these two types of NP). Indefinite NPs (i.e. those introduced by a/an~ some or zero and the 'nonstandard determiners' many~ most~ several and a few), by definition, do not in themselves uniquely determine a referent, where they are understood as referring expressions. Thus their IDs must consist of contextually more determinate information than need be the case for those of definite NPs which are construed as invoking a new discourse entity, rather than referring anaphorically to an already established one. A unique description of a discourse entity invoked by an indefinite NP, then, must consist of "a conjunction of (1) the description inherent in the noun phrase ••. ; (2) a predicate that embodies the remainder of the sentence ••• ; and (3) a predicate that relates that entity to the sentence evoking it" (1979:210). Thus, in (9) John saw a cat, 150

Reference and Anaphora the Level 2 representation would be as in (9)a, from which the ID of the discourse entity invoked via the indefinite NP would be derived as in (9)b: (9)a b

(3x:cat).

Saw John, x

[el ix: Cat x & Saw John, x & evoke S9, x]

In (unidiomatic) prose, this would read: 'discourse entity no.l is the just-mentioned (in sentence (9)) cat which John9 saw. 1 Definite NPs (i.e. those introduced by the definite article, possessive pronoun, demonstrative adjective or one of the 'nonstandard determiners' feW 3 not many 3 all 3 not all 3 almost all), on the other hand, since they constitute in themselves a unique determination of a referent, sanction IDs which consist only of the iota operator, a variable, and the description corresponding to theN of the definite NP restricting the variable's range. This presupposes, of course, that the definite NP in question is being used, like the indefinite NP in (9), to introduce an entity into the discourse model. However, a definite NP may have an alternative function, namely to refer anaphorically to some already established discourse entity. In this case, like one possible interpretation of the proper noun John in (9), it is simply replaced in the Level 2 representation by the name of this discourse entity. An example where a definite NP can be interpreted as invoking a discourse entity would be one involving an "inferrable" (cf. Hawkins's 1978 'associative anaphora'), where the NP in question instantiates a slot within the 'car' frame: (10)

I bought a new Citroen yesterday, but the windscreen-

wiper doesn't work.

One unsatisfactory feature of Webber's method of ID formulation is its general lack of specificness regarding the referential status which is assigned to the associated discourse entity. This is often only fully determinable once an anaphoric reference to it via some anaphor has been established, as many of Webber's own examples clearly indicate. In the case of those discourse entities which are accessed by definite anaphors (mainly third person pronouns- cf. 1979:Ch.2), their 'default' referential status seems to be 'specific entity' as in the ID given in (9)b. But this should be made explicit within the ID; however it is unclear exactly how this could be done, within the existing(non-standard) formalism. Example (6) further illustrates the important fact that the IDs of existing discourse referents are extended by properties later predicated of them, through the mediation of anaphors; ce in this example refers to a specific, male person whose discourse 151

Reference and Anaphora referent has already been established at that point in the discourse, and the further property ' ••. A (r:Truand) [Chevronne])x' is added to its ID via predication. The latter complex predicate is then isolated to form a new ID for the generic discourse referent inferred from its predecessor. The difference between the nature of the reference of the antecedent trigger and that of the anaphor in (8) further underlines the importance of indicating the referential status of a discourse referent within its ID. Webber allows for additional information concerning a discourse referent entering its ID via: (a) general or specific knowledge about the type or individual token of the referent, respectively; (b) the speaker's assumed beliefs about the type of the referent; (c) information concerning the referent which is directly or indirectly (by means of inference) derived from the later discourse; (d) information concerning the referent which is immediately available to both speaker and addressee from the situational context. In the case of (c), it is in many cases the resolution of an anaphor which leads to the full specification of a hitherto indeterminate ID - in particular, as far as the referential status of its associated discourse referent is concerned. In examples (5), (6) and (8), as we have seen, the anaphor within its immediate discourse context triggers the introduction of a new discourse referent, with a distinct referential status, via inference from the ID of an earlier one; in (2)b, however, it is unable to do so, while in (3)b, it requires the ID of the already-established discourse referent ('the rich man, whoever he is, such that Mary wants to marry him', which in its immediate context will have assumed the 'default' status 'non-specific' (i.e. existing only in Mary's desire-world)), to assume the referential status 'specific, actually-existing entity'. Similarly, the resolution of the pronoun in (4)b, subject to the referential constraint on its potential discourse referent imposed by theanaphoric clause as a whole, actually creates a specific ID for a discourse referent whose existence within the discourse model had not (necessarily) been determined by the end of the initial sentence in (4)a, since nothing in the latter was able unambiguously to specify the exact scope of the negation in it (cf. Webber, 1979: Ch.2,57-60, for relevant discussion of a very similar example). Such examples, and others like them (see Webber, 1979:2.1.3 2.5.4, in particular, for further such examples) clearly illustrate the 'discourse operator' function which I have suggested anaphors perform (cf.p. 143 above) at the level of discourse, and indicate the full implications of Karttunen's (1976) condition of subsequent anaphoric reference upon the existence within the discourse model of a discourse referent. In the next two sections, as well as in Chapter 6, I shall be presenting a number of examples, particularly French ones, which will enable us to elaborate further the notion of 152

Reference and Anaphora 'invoking description', or 'linguistic reflex', that we have developed so far. 5.3

DEIXIS AND ANAPHORA

The problematic examples we have been discussing in the preceding section would appear to underline the importance of taking full account of the deictic component of (non-demonstrative) anaphors, i.e. what Lyons (1975: 74) calls the property of 'nondirectional pointing', which all definite referring expressions might be said to share. Although it is legitimate and important to distinguish both between a deictic and a normal use of what I have been calling 'strict' (i.e. grammatically controlled) anaphors (cf. Chapter 3), and between 'anaphoric' and 'deictic' uses of ordinary third-person pronouns and definite descriptions (cf.,e.g. Bosch, 1983), it is nevertheless also the case that, independently of whether they are occurring deictically or anaphorically (in Bosch's 1983 sense 1 D), third person, independent (i.e. non-clitic, in Stahlke's 1984 sense) non-demonstrative pronouns in both English and French do possess the deixis-related property of being able to trigger into focus a latent discourse referent, subject to certain conditions. This property is generally claimed to be the prerogative of either demonstrative-based anaphors (demonstrative pronouns or NPs introduced by a demonstrative determiner) or deicticallyused personal pronouns (see note 10), as is the case in Bosch (1983) and Ehlich (1982). The generally held view in recent work (cf. the two works cited in the previous sentence, as well as Lyons (1977, 1979a), a view to which, with reservations, I subscribe, is that the discourse function of deixis is to re-direct the addressee's attention to a (relatively) new discourse entity which is accessible within the relevant deictic space, whether spatial (the situation of utterance itself) or temporal (the preceding and succeeding discourse context). In complementarity with this, the discourse function of anaphora is to "sustain the previously obtained focus of attention", in Ehlich's (1982:329) words. According to Ehlich, both functions can be properly understood only by taking into account both the speaker's and the addressee's active roles in their operation, their overall goal being to bring into conformity the speaker's and the addressee's joint foci of attention throughout the ongoing discourse process. Cf. also Lyons's (1977:673) characterisation of their different functions: Anaphora presupposes that the referent should already have its place in the universe-ofdiscourse, (whereas) (d)eixis does not; indeed, deixis is one of the principal means open to us 153

Reference and Anaphora of putting entities into the universe-ofdiscourse so that we can refer to them subsequently. Bosch, ibid., p.202, is indeed quite explicit about this, in saying that '~naphoricaLLy used expressions ... reLate onLy to terms aLready introduced into discourse (linguistically or by other means) before the anaphor is used" (in italics in the text), and moreover (p.203) that The intended referent for an anaphoric pronoun ... must already be the most salient object in the domain of discourse at the moment of the utterance, more salient at least than any other object that could possibly be referred to by the same form. And this 'object', according to Bosch, is what the discourse at that particular point is about. While it is clear that zero anaphors, whether 'strict' or referential (cf. Marslen-Wilson, Levy & Tyler, 1982:351-354), clitic pronouns, 'description-substitutes' (including predicate anaphors and so-called 'pronouns of laziness' within this category), and 'strict' (i.e. non-referential) anaphors in general either do not refer to a discourse entity or refer to the discourse entity within the minimal containing domain of reference that bears the highest degree of focus (in both Grosz's 1978 and Reichman's 1978 sense of this term), subject to certain semantic and pragmatic conditions, this is not necessarily the case for ordinary, non-deictic third person pronouns and definite descriptions. In (3)b, (4)b, the second version of (4)c, (5) and (10), as we have seen, the (non-clitic) pronouns and definite description are only weakly stressed (and hence are 'anaphoric' rather than 'deictic', in Bosch's 1983 terms); yet they do not "relate •.• to terms already introduced into discourse .•. before the anaphor is used", nor is their intended referent "already ... the most salient object in the domain of discourse at the moment of utterance". In none of these instances is the anaphor's referent in high focus or salience immediately prior to the anaphoric clause, nor can the discourses in question at that point in their development be said to be 'about' the entities concerned: indeed, they could not be, for it is the anaphors, together with the particular nature of the predication expressed by their containing clauses, as well as the particular coherence relation in terms of which the latter are integrated into their preceding discourse contexts, which are primarily responsible for their existence, and perhaps also for making them, subsequently, highly salient. It is, of course, the coherence relation in terms of which 154

Reference and Anaphora the predication expressed by the anaphoric clause as a whole is integrated with its discourse context, which contains the antecedent-trigger, which is the chief factor in the new discourse referent's transition from latency to high focus, so that the anaphoric clause as a whole is now 'about' a new 'object', in Bosch's terms. This strongly bears out MarslenWilson, Levy & Tyler's (1982:367) claim, already quoted in this chapter (p. 133 ) , that "in utterances containing anaphoric pronouns, the entire utterance is functioning as the referential device". Discourse focusing, as both Grosz (1978:101) and Lockman & Klappholz (1980:37) point out, is a process whose object, from the addressee's point of view, can only be determined with more or less certainty when later utterances are processed and their integration with the one whose exact focus is at issue is achieved. Focusing then, an activity which is equivalent to establishing the local discourse topic, is clearly deictic in essence, being the assumption by the speaker that a particular discourse entity is what he/she and his/her addressee are both communicating about at the moment of utterance. It would appear that the framework within which focusing operates is the domain of reference, as defined in 5.1, which may consist of one or more 'context spaces' (which are mutually accessible due to some specific local coherence relation). In Reichman's (1978) system, there are four distinct levels of 'focus assignment' which a speaker may be understood to give to a discourse entity within a context space, depending both on the latter's current 'state' at that particular point in the discourse 11 and on the nature of its local coherence relation with the preceding and/or succeeding context space. The four focus levels are high, mediwn, low and zero, these being "approximations of cutoff points along an underlying continuum of focus" (1978:304). The level of focus which a speaker can be understood to be assigning to a particular discourse entity within a context space reflects the relative degree of importance he/she is attaching to it within that context space. Although Reichman's notion of focus is more differentiated and hence more realistic than Bosch's (she developed it through an analysis of spontaneous recorded conversations, extracts from which are reproduced in the article), she falls prey to the same kind of over-simplification as regards third person pronouns (which she does not sub-divide into 'deictic' and 'referentialanaphoric', on the one hand, or into independent and clitic, on the other). This is evident in two of·her abstract rules governing mode of reference (via a third person pronoun, a demonstrative, a definite description, or a proper name): (11)

(R's SYN 10, p.311) Within a given context space, all actors who do not have high focus levels will not be referred to by pronominal form ... 155

Reference and Anaphora (12)

(R's SYN 13, p.312) By the time an entity is referred to with a pronoun it must already be in high focus, unless the entity is referred to as the agent of an event and s/he by this time is in medium focus.

Even taking 'pronominal form' (sic) and 'pronoun' in these rules to denote anaphoric (as opposed to deictic) uses of a pronoun, it is clear that in an example like the second version of (4)c, the discourse referent to which she refers in the anaphoric clause has zero focus by the time it is referred to by the pronoun, since it is until then 'unspecified' (cf. Reichman's Focus Level Assignment Rule 1, p. 325: "All unspecified entities of a context space receive zero focus levels"). The referent itself is of course determined via an inference triggered by the predication expressed by the whole anaphoric clause and the coherence relation ('Elaboration', in Hobbs's 1978,1979 system) in terms of which it is integrated with the initial clause of this discourse fragment. It is equally clear that not any occurrence of a third person, independent, anaphoric (unstressed) pronoun can achieve the transition to high focus (i.e. saliency) of a latent discourse referent bearing a low or zero level of focus at the point at which it is used. Third person personal independent pronouns, then, are 'low-deixis' rather than 'high-deixis' expressions, in Garcia's (1977:153) terms. This is a distinction which she claims is relevant to the Spanish third person clitic pronouns: the set comprising ~L, 'he', (nominative), le 'to him/her/it' (dative), and lo 'it' (accusative) she describes as expressing the signal 'high deixis', in opposition to the reflexive form se which indicates 'low deixis'. For Garcia (1977:153), "deixis has to do, fundamentally, with the concentration of attention". The use of forms signalling 'low deixis' is an indication to the addressee that "a low degree of attention is needed to identify the [entity] referred to", while 'high deixis' forms signal the fact that "a high concentration of attention is needed to identify the [entity] referred to". It seems that we are dealing here with a discourse- rather thanlexically-determined distinction: that is, it is not the indexical form as such, in isolation, which carries one or the other of these types of signal, but rather the availability in context of a contrast through the alternative use of the relevant contrasting term in the opposition. Thus the same contrast is expressible via the choice of a zero anaphor or a clitic (i.e. contracted) personal pronoun versus an independent, unstressed personal pronoun; via the use of an independent unstressed personal pronoun versus that of an independent stressed personal pronoun; via the choice of a stressed personal pronoun instead of a demonstrative pronoun (which is automatically stressed); 156

RefePence and AnaphoPa or via the selection of a neutral, unmarked demonstrative (i.e. non-proximal, non-distal that, in Lyons's 1975 scheme) instead of either of its marked counterparts. This is, in fact, how I understand Garcia to have intended the distinction in question. Some examples which appear to provide justification for this analysis are presented below: (13)

(Carden & Miller, 1970:555) "Redwood stumps sprout prolifically, and these (# they -FC) can grow to maturity •.. "

(14)

(Carden & Miller, 1970:555) "Don't litter. it (flthis/that -FC) in the barrel".

(15)

"We do not undertake repairs without drycleaning the (llthis/that -FC) garment" (Notice in a Dry Cleaning shop).

Throw

In (13), the most natural interpretation of they, were it used in place of these, would be as referring to the discourse entity bearing high focus, namely 'redwood stumps, which sprout prolifically', the local discourse topic at that point in the discourse. However, this is an impossible reading, in the light of our knowledge of the world, as Carden and Miller point out. Thus, the triggering of a new discourse entity (a sub-topic in both Bullwinkle's 1977 and Hannay's 1985 terms) from the predication of the initial clause (now part of the linguistic reflex of the existing topic discourse entity) via the 'highdeixis' pronoun these is obligatory here. (14) and (15) illustrate, in a sense, the opposite phenomenon to the one exemplified by (13). Although in (14) the clause preceding the anaphoric one makes available via its predicate a potential set of entities to which the pronoun it can refer (cf. the Penguin English Dictionary's (1965) definition of the verb to Utter (in this sense) as "make untidy by scattering rubbish in or on" (p.423), where the object of the verb scatteP, like the noun litteP itself, is singular, non-count). This is indeed analogous to what happens in the interpretation of (13), where the intransitive verb sprout~ like litter in (14), is logically transitive: thus, to assert that certain entities 'sprout prolifically' is to imply that they "develop shoots, buds etc." (Penguin English Dictionary, p.663). The essential difference between the two examples, of course, is that in the first case, but not the second, there is a 'competition' between two discourse entities, the first of which ('redwood stumps') has medium or high focus, as an 'agent', and the second ('a large number of sprouts, which can develop from redwood stumps') only zero, according to Reichman's (1978) 157

Reference and Anaphora scheme. Hence, the latter cannot be referred to pronominally within the initial context or focus space; it is only by creating a new one, shifting the discourse context by the use of a 'high-deixis' expression so that a sub-topic now bears the highest level of focus of the new context space, that this can be achieved. In (14), on the other hand, the illocutionary act performed via the utterance of the initial sentence is directive: the imperative mood of the clause directs the addressee's attention to the intension of the predicate, which bears the sentence stress; and that intension, as we have seen, crucially involves a goal argument ('litter/rubbish') which, though unexpressed, must nevertheless (contra Reichman's stricture) bear at least a medium level of focus. The transition from medium to high focus can thus easily be achieved via the use of it in the following clause, within the same context space. (14) is thus more similar to (15), in that the anaphor concerned refers to the instantiation of a slot of the frame (here 'dry cleaning') which is partly activated by the verb undertake repairs, and partly by the addressee's presence within the shop itself. The goal of the activity concerned is thus to have items of clothing dry-cleaned (and, optionally, repaired), so that, though it is again unexpressed, the latter must bear at least a medium level of focus in this context. Notice that, if either of the low-deixis pronouns they or it had been used in place of the definite NP the garment here, the former of these two pronouns would most naturally have been interpreted as referring to the plural entity 'the repairs to items of clothing which we undertake', an obviously incoherent interpretation; while if it had been used, there would have been a hiatus, since (as with the use of they in (13)) a non-deictic pronoun would be referring to a discourse entity whose current focus level has been reduced from the medium level it had initially to low, via the introduction~of a more recent discourse entity ('the repairs .•. ') which now enjoys a high focus level. Hence the use of the non-deictic, descriptive NP the garment, whose head noun is superordinate in relation to the set of individual items of clothing, and so the NP as a whole cannot be construed as introducing a new entity into the discourse model (cf. also 2.2.2 above). The interpretation of these, it and the garment in (13), (14) and (15), respectively, is analogous to that of the instances of propositional it in 4(33)b-f: the anaphors in both sets have both a referential and a variable interpretation within the domain of reference which their containing clause serves to maintain, bound as it is by an operator bearing the equivalent of universal force. Thus, anaphora and deixis are alike in that they are each 158

Reference and Anaphora devices by means of which the speaker draws the addressee's attention to some aspect of the discourse context, thereby establishing an indexical connexion between that aspect of the context and the zero-point of the deictic space - the speaker's act of utterance. Saliency or level of focus of attention is itself a deictically-based notion (as Lyons 1977, 1979a points out), so that discourse anaphora, which operates according to this framework, is fundamentally dependent upon deixis, as Lyons (1975) himself argues. I shall end this chapter with an exemplification of various degrees of inter-penetration of deixis and anaphora within the pronoun system (of French, in particular), and within the closely related morphological categories of gender and number. This will prefigure the discussion of a variety of concord phenomena in English and French (as well as a number of other European languages), in Chapter 6.

5.4

PRONOMINAL ANAPHORA, DEIXIS, AND REFERENTIAL PERSPECTIVE

Let us look now at the differences between deictic and anaphoric uses of French third person personal pronouns, in the light of Bosch's (1983) distinction between what he calls 'syntactic' and 'referentiar pronouns. Like the deictic and anaphorie functions of indexical expressions, these are distinguishable roles which such expressions may fulfil in discourse rather than being confined to specific form types, though there is some degree of correlation between type of indexical expression and type of function. In French, as well as English, the number of an NP is in general determined as a function of the singularity vs. plurality of its referent, where it has one (NPs in predicate nominal function, being predicative rather than referential, normally have their gender (in French) and number determined by the subject argument of which they are the functor); that is, morphosyntactic number is a property of the NP as a whole rather than of its head noun (in spoken French, of course, in contrast with English, morpho-syntactic number is signalled by the determiner, as well as by the form of the noun itself in certain instances (e.g. cheva~/chevaux etc.)). There are, however, various exceptional cases in both languages where it is the noun itself which is inherently (and thus grammatically) specified for number (e.g. English trousers (plur.), scissors (plur.), and French fun~railles (plur.), 'funeral', t~n~bres (plur.), 'darkness'). Thus, third person non-reflexive,non-reciprocal pronouns in these two languages, being NPs, may assume number values distinct from those manifested by their antecedenttriggers (where they exist). In such cases, the pronouns in question will be 'referential' rather than 'syntactic' (i.e. 159

Reference and Anaphora strict-anaphoric) in function, in Bosch's (1983) terms. When their antecedent-trigger is an NP headed by a 'pluralia tantum' noun such as scissors, however, their number value will in general be grammatically rather than pragmatically determined. So far as gender is concerned, in English and to some extent also in French, the grammatical gender borne by a third person pronoun is determined by whether or not the pronoun (if referential) refers to a person. If it does, its gender value will normally correspond to the sex of its referent. As far as French lexically-headed NPs are concerned, the normal situation is one in which the gender of the NP as a whole is determined by the (grammatical) gender value for which its head noun is inherently specified. There are, however, a number of person-denoting Ns (e.g. concierge) whose gender is variable in that it normally corresponds to the sex of their referent (that is to say, the head nouns of such NPs have no inherent gender at all). In such cases, as in the unmarked case regarding an NP's morpho-syntactic number specification, I would claim that the value for gender is a property of the NP as a whole, inasmuch as it is a referring expression, rather than essentially of its head noun. In what I have described as the normal situation as regards gender in French, then, it is predicted that third person pronouns in an anaphoric relation with such NPs as antecedent-triggers will assume the same gender value for which the latter are marked more frequently than they will assume the same number value. Nevertheless, such a prediction cannot be made with any degree of certainty independently of a knowledge of the specific nature of the reference being effected by means of the pronoun in any particular instance. Although it is true, as is well known, that NPs headed by gender-invariant nouns which are used to refer to human beings do not normally act as antecedent-triggers to pronouns which share their gender value where the latter conflicts with the sex of their referent, this is not invariably the case. That is, it is clear, o~ the one hand, that (16)a and b below represent the normal situation, where the referent of la sentinelle (fern), 'the sentry', and il (masc), 'he', is a male human being, and that of le professeur (masc), 'the teacher', and elle (fern), 'her', a female: (16)a

La sentinelle avait faim. Il avait monte la garde depuis quatre heures. 'The sentry was hungry. He had stood guard for four hours'.

b

Le professeur se mit soudain en colere. Elle n'en pouvait plus. 'The teacher suddenly became angry. cope any longer'.

160

She couldn't

Reference and Anaphora In such instances, it is the pronoun, not the antecedenttrigger, which enables the addressee to interpret the speaker as intending to refer to a maZe human being via the antecedenttrigger in (16)a (in addition to the shared cultural knowledge that sentries are more likely to be male than female), and to a female one via that in (16)b. A similar view of non-syntactic pronouns is expressed in, e.g., Mackay & Fulkerson (1980), Hirst & Brill (1980), McKoon & Ratcliff (1980) and Wiese (1983), and, as far as French is concerned, by Van den Eynde & BlancheBenveniste (1978). Were the pronouns in both (16)a and b replaced by ones whose gender value matched that of the head nouns of their antecedent-triggers, with the referential perspective heZd constant in each case, then the resulting discourse would be felt to be highly marked (if not unacceptable) by most French speakers (but see examples (17)-(19) below, as well as the discussion relating to them). However, in those contexts in which the reference is to the function or status of the individual as described by the head noun of the antecedent-trigger (and reflected in the presence of the corresponding predicate within the linguistic reflex formulated for the discourse entity it has evoked), or to the individual in his/her capacity as an exponent of such a function or status, the pronoun will agree in gender with its antecedent-trigger, even though that gender value may conflict with the sex of its human referent. Compare in this respect (17), (18) and (19) with (16)a and b: (17)

"Que Votre Majeste (fern ,sing ) ne se mette pas en colere; Mais plutot qu'elle (fern ,sing ) considere ... " (La Fontaine, Les Animaux Malades de la Peste, cited in Grevisse, 1969:416). 'Let Your Majesty not become angry; But rather let her (lit.)(i.e.it) consider .•. '.

(18)

" ... le premier ministre (masc ,sing.) [of Britainat the time, Mrs Thatcher], il est vrai, n'avait pas cache, en s'installant au 10 Downing Street, que la periode qui s'ouvrait serait plus marquee par le sang, la sueur et les larmes que par la facilite. IZ (masc ,sing ) peut, en outre, faire valoir que nombre de ces difficultes ont ete heritees des travaillistes ... " (Le Monde, leader column, p.l, 21.5.81). ' .•. The prime minister [Mrs Thatcher], it is true, had not hidden the fact, on settling into 10 Downing Street, that the coming period would be marked more by blood, sweat and tears than by easy answers. He (lit.) can, moreover, argue that a number of these difficulties were inherited 161

Reference and Anaphora from Labour ••• ' (19)

" ••• Le juge d'instruction (masc ,sing) [Mme. Llaurens-Guerin] est, ~ui (masc ,sing investi de cette fonction d'equilibre. Une lecture opportune de la loi de 1881 permettrait ace magistrat ••• de dissiper les malentendus et les equivoques" (Le Monde, 15.8.8l,p.l).

Fran~oise

' ••• The examining magistrate [Mme. F. LlaurensGuerin], for his (lit.) part, is invested with this balancing function. An opportune interpretation of the 1881 law would enable this magistrate .•. to clear up the misunderstandings and ambiguities' • In (17), the masculine pronoun i~, referring to the male 'monarch' in question (the lion, 'king' of the animals) would have been misplaced, since the conditions under which the utterance is produced require reference to be effected indirectly via the title Sa Majest~ (III, fern ,sing ) rather than directly to the (situational) referent (cf. also Comrie, 1975): the speaker is addressing his referent, to whom moreover he is socially and politically subordinate. Protocol demands, therefore, that reference be indirect (thus implying deference), and that it be effected via the description contained within the antecedent-trigger. Both (18) and (19) are instances of a formal, written variety of French. In both, the journalist's concern is to say something about the female individual in question in her capacity as prime minister of Britain and examining magistrate, respectively,rather than about that individual in her own right. Mrs Thatcher's special responsibilities as prime minister are stressed in the predications which make up (18), and the particular powers of a magistrate devolving upon Mme Llaurens-Guerin are clearly in focus in (19) (and this factor is emphasised further by the use of another masculine NP as anaphor, namely ce magistrat). (cf. also Boel, 1976, a work which I shall be discussing in Chapter 6). In the following extracts from a letter to Le Monde, it is noteworthy that the change in the gender value of a pronoun used to refer to the same discourse entitY. subtly betokens a shift in referential focus or perspective on the individual in question, on the writer's part. (20)

162

" ... L'independance universitaire est, elle aussi, diminuee. Le ministre (masc, sing)[at the time, Mme Alice Saunier-Seite] s'octroie le droit de nommer le tiers des membres du conseil superieur . ••• Sauf si le ministre est infiniment sage, •••

Reference and Anaphora Pour que le verrouillage soit parfait, le ministre des universites s'octroie egalement le pouvoir de recruter lui-m~me (masc,sing) qui bon lui semble sur les pastes de professeurs nouvellement crees ••. l'intervention directe du ministre, ..• Le ministre des universites avait annonce une nuit du 4 aout pour les universitaires. Elle (fem,sing) connait decidement fort mal son histoire, car elle apporte tout le contraire: le renforcement des privileges des notables .•. " (J. Gattegno, Le Monde, 22.8.79). ' ... The independence of Universities is also diminished. The minister [Mme Saunier-Seite] confers upon himself the right to appoint a third of the members of the upper council ••. Unless the minister is infinitely wise, .•• So that the battening-down is perfect, the minister for the Universities also grants himself the power to recruit hims~lf (lit.) whomsoever he pleases for the newly created Professorships .•. the minister's direct intervention, .•. The minister for the Universities had announced a 'night of 4th August' [date during the 1789 Revolution when Feudalism was formally abolished] for University teachers. She evidently knows her history very poorly, since she is instituting quite the opposite: the buttressing of the mandarins' privileges.' What is interesting in this extract is that the gender of the pronoun appears to be determined as a function of the particular mode of reference signalled by the discourse segment in which it occurs, a mode of reference which is itself a reflex of the disGourse function manifested in the wider discourse unit (here, the paragraph) in which the segment itself occurs (cf. the approach to anaphora of Reichman, 1978, Fox, 1985 and others, in terms of 'rhetorical' or discourse structure). In the first paragraph of the quoted passage, the emphasis is upon the new status and powers devolving upon the minister as a result of the recent law concerning the recruitment of University teachers. It is the role of the Minister for the Universities as such, whichever particular individual may at any one time be fulfilling that role, which Gattegno is focusing upon in this paragraph (cf. the rhetorical function of the repetition of the full NP le ministre rather than the use of the appropriate pronouns, and the fact that the sentences here have the force of general statements, their tense/aspect being the simple present). In the final paragraph, however, the emphasis is upon the particular individual fulfilling the function of Minister for

163

Reference and Anaphora the Universities at the time of writing. Given such an immediate discourse context, it would have been decidedly strange if the author had chosen a pronoun agreeing in gender with the head noun of the antecedent-trigger (which is repeated in the initial sentence of the paragraph in question), instead of a pronoun whose gender corresponds to the sex of the actual individual referred to in the paragraph. It is possible to view the difference between examples of the type in (17)-(19), on the one hand, and (16)a,b on the other (as well as the difference apparent in (20)) as to some extent analogous to Donnellan's (1966) distinction between the 'attributive' and 'referential' status of NPs in context. Whereas the 'attributive' status of an NP involves the application of the description contained within in as a criterion determining the potential membership of a particular class of entities, the 'referential' use involves the identification of one particular entity from amongst a set of entities (or a subset of entities from within a more encompassing set of such entities). Thus in (21), (21)

(Donnellan, 1966:285) Smith's murderer is insane.

the attributive use of the NP Smith's murderer would be equivalent to the value 'any individual having the property of having murdered Smith'; while the referential use would be equivalent to 'the particular individual who murdered Smith'. It would appear, then, from the French examples so far examined, that in those cases where the gender value of the pronoun is the same as that of the head noun of its antecedent-trigger, 12 the reference is not unequivocally to a specific individual qua individual, but to that individual in his or her capacity as possessor of the attribute defined by the descriptive component (i.e. the head noun and any dependent adjectives or restrictive relative clauses). of the NP as a whole; and that, in those cases where the gender value of the pronoun corresponds to the sex of its human referent, in instances where this value is distinct from the grammatical gender value manifested by the head noun of its antecedent-trigger, the reference is to a specific individual in principle independently of his/her possessing the particular property defined by the antecedent-trigger's descriptive component. Though this difference is not as radical as that expressed by the 'referential' vs. 'attributive' distinction in Donnellan's sense (in that the reference is still to a particular individual in each case), it is nevertheless a difference of the same general kind. I shall call this a difference in 'referential perspective', rather than a difference in reference per se, which is what Donnellan's distinction serves to mark. It is the third person pronouns, as well as the articles and determiners at the level of the NP itself, rather than fully specified NPs, which, in their role as 164

Reference and Anaphora 'discourse operators', signal such differences in referential perspective. As example (20) so clearly shows, the referential perspective adopted upon a discourse entity may shift, dynamically, as the discourse develops, its linguistic reflex being updated accordingly (cf. the 'dynamic' effects of the anaphors exemplified in 5.2). This difference in referential perspective is, of course, only possible when the antecedent-trigger is interpretable, in context, as a referring expression. Where this is not the case, as when it is understood as generic, or as a 'prototype' (cf. Webber, 1979:Ch.l,l8), as in (22)a-c, only the 'attributive' interpretation is available via anaphora: (22)a

Quand un professeur (masc) semet en colere, il (masc)(/*elle) perd son autorite sur ses eleves. 'When a teacher gets angry, he/she forfeits his/her authority over his/her pupils'.

b

Quand une infirmiere (fern) se met en colere, elle (fem)(/*il) perd son sang-froid. 'When a nurse gets angry, she (/?he) loses her (/?his) cool'.

c

Quand une personne (fern) se met en colere, elle (fern) (/*il) perd son sang-froid. 'When a person gets angry, she/he loses her/his cool'.

The 'prototype' interpretation is 'the typical x possessing the defining property of the class of entities specified by the descriptive part of the expression'. The indefinite NPs in (22) all have this interpretation since they occur in a conditional environment under the scope of the operator having universal force (namely 'whenever ..• '); thus the NPs in question are more predicative than referential (serving to identify a particular individual or set of individuals) in their contexts, and so it is, obligatorily, the descriptive predicates expressed by their head nouns which are highlighted through anaphora, this relationship being signalled via the obligatory syntactic concord with those head nouns (inherently specified for gender) by the pronouns (cf. also the possibility of predicate anaphora in examples like 4(46)c and d). Note the differences in the distribution of the corresponding English pronouns in the glosses of (22)a-c; this is due to the fact that 'gender' in English is not grammatically but socioculturally defined (see McConnell-Ginet, 1979). Pragmatic anaphora, where the anaphor's referent is an entity introduced into the discourse model via joint focusing 165

Referenee and Anaphora upon some feature of the situation of utterance, or is already highly salient within the universe of discourse though it has not been introduced linguistically, also operates through the speaker's imposition of a particular referential perspective upon his/her referent. This type of anaphora is neither 'deictic', in Bosch's (1983) sense (i.e. serving to shift the focus of attention to some entity not already in high focus, but available within the relevant deictic space), nor 'syntactic', again in Bosch's sense, but corresponds rather to what Bosch (1983:201) calls 'anaphora proper' (i.e. 'relatively', as opposed to 'absolutely' controlled anaphora: cf. ibid., p.33 ff.). The ana~hors concerned are independent (non-clitic) personal pronouns, 1 whether nominal (determining a first-order extensional referent) or propositional (determining a secondorder extensional,or second-order intensional referent - see note 8, Chapter 2 above)) in value, non-elliptical predicate anaphors (cf. the contrast between 4(9)a and b, p. 89 above) - elliptical predicate anaphors being susceptible of use under pragmatic control only under certain restricted pragmatic conditions -, 'description-substitutes', and definite NPs (both definite descriptions and 'pronominal epithets'). One further common formal feature of anaphors performing this discourse function is their low level of stress and pitch, i.e. their phonological non-prominence. In this respect, they are distinct from what Bosch (1983) calls 'deictic' anaphora, which, in conformity with their distinct discourse role, are phonologically prominent (see note 10 for the distinguishing criteria proposed by Bosch in this respect). Pragmatic anaphors would thus encompass the nominal anaphors (pronouns and definite description) illustrated in 5.2, which are not deictic yet are 'pragmatically controlled' to the extent that their referents are all determined via an inference, which is itself controlled by the interpretative principle regulating discourse coherence. The English elliptical predicate anaphors illustrated in 4(13)-(18) and 4(20), and the overt predicate anaphor (do it) exemplified in 4(26)a and 4(27)a, and in 4(3l)a-d, similarly fall within the class of pragmaticallycontrolled anaphors. 'Antecedentless' anaphors, whose interpretation is wholly subject to pragmatic control, are no longer the marginal or special case which they were in accounts of anaphora which gave priority to a textual 'antecedent': on the contrary, in this framework, they are the central exponents of anaphora proper in that they involve a pragmaticallydetermined relation between the discourse segment in which they occur and a discourse entity, whose existence they presuppose. Clearly, for this type of anaphoric occurrence, the nature of what is predicated of such anaphors in the anaphoric segment and the discourse (i.e. illocutionary) status of this segment in context becomes especially crucial in the resolution of their reference (cf. Yule, 1982, Tyler & Marslen-Wilson, 1982). 166

Reference and Anaphora Looking now at 'nominal' discourse anaphora in French, I mentioned in note 13 Tasmowski-De Ryck & Verluyten's (1982) argument that 'antecedentless' clitia pronouns are in fact controlled by an 'absentee' linguistic antecedent (-trigger), whereas independent or disjunctive pronouns, since they correspond to arguments, are directly controlled by the relevant extra-linguistic features of the actual referent (e.g. sex, animacy, referential number), as perceived by the speaker . Two of the French examples which they use to illustrate this contrast are given below. (23)

(T-DR & V's (10)) [John is trying to stuff a large table (fern) in the trunk of his car; Mary says: ] { l l Tu.n'arriveras jamais at#l~J faire entrer dans la vo1ture. , . . {(fern) l . h , You w1 11 never manage to get 1t t#(masc)J 1nto t e car .

(24)

(T-DR & V's (18)) [John is looking at a shirt (fern) in a department store] a #Elle, c'est une tres belle chemise. #It (fern), it's a very fine shirt' b

~a,

crest une tres belle chemise

'That, it's a very fine shirt' (cf. 'Tnat's a very fine shirt') (N.B. As in certain earlier quoted examples, I have here replaced the asterisk which the authors prefix to (24)a with the crosshatch, indicating pragmatic incoherence at the utterance level rather than categorical ill-formedness at the sentence level). (23) shows that the gender-variable clitic pronoun (neuter le being incapable of referring to (specifig entities) is determined by the linguistic properties of the noun most commonly used in referring to exemplars of the type in question (both the action of stuffing the table into the car's trunk, and the object - the table - upon which the action is performed being highly salient in the discourse context), namely table (fern). (24), on the other hand, where the speech participants are jointly focusing upon some particular shirt, is incoherent when a gender-variable disjunctive pronoun is used which agrees in gender with the noun most commonly used in referring to exemplars of the type of entity represented by the referent (chemise, fern); instead, a neuter demonstrative pronoun specialised in reference to inanimate objects, ra 'that', is used (cf. (24)b). The disjunctive pronoun elle in (24), as Tasmowski-De Ryck & Verluyten (p.330) point out, is a 'deictic' 167

Reference and Anaphora pronoun; as such, it necessarily bears a high degree of stress and hence serves in the example under consideration to shift the topic rather than maintain it via the anaphoric function normally fulfilled by its unstressed counterpart. The latter function is performed by the unstressed clitic elle in the following attested example: (25)

[An open-air swimming pool in South-West France. Man, entering the swimming-pool precinct, to the au thor, who is just leaving it: ] "Elle est froide?" 'It (fern) is cold? 1 (i.e. 'Is it cold?')

The pronoun in (25), while bearing the same morphological (though not phonetic) form as the one in (24)a, is indeed 'linguistically' controlled, via the 'basic-level' noun (cf. Rosch 1978) 14 eau (fern), 'water': this noun is made available in the context in question through (a) the nature of the function 'est froid' applying to the subject argument slot (i.e. 'something which can be asserted as being cold'); (b) the pronoun's grammatical gender, number and person feature values, as well as the fact that it is a clitic and not disjunctive pronoun, so that its gender is not necessarily determined by the perceived sex of its actual referent; and (c) the contextual salience of the 'swimming-pool' frame, one of the important slots of which is its water. All three of these factors are conditions restricting in one way or another the set of potential referents for the pronoun. The coherence principle governing the interpretation of all anaphoric phenomena is what ultimately guides the addressee's selection of the actual referent of the pronoun, and, once this is achieved, determines the contextually adjusted sense of the predicate which applies to it (cf. Bosch 1983:3.3.1 and 3.3.2.2 for discussion of the context-dependent interpretation of predicates). The status of the 'basic-level' noun in terms of which the gender feature value of the pronoun is assigned is not that of an 'antecedent', which as we have seen has no theoretical significance in an account of the operation of anaphora, but rather that of the final independent predicate of the linguistic reflex of that pronoun's discourse referent. In the case of the discourse referent in question, its linguistic reflex would, informally (and somewhat inelegantly), look something like this: (25)

'l'entite du discours qui est l'eau dans la piscine' 'the discourse entity which is the water in the swimming-pool' .

168

Reference and Anaphora to which the predicate 'qui est froide' ('which is cold') would be added via conjunction after (25) has been processed if the answer to the question is affirmative, or 'qui n'est pas froide' ('which is not cold') if negative. Once the pronoun has been resolved in terms of this discourse referent, the predicate 'etre froid', 'be cold', will itself have superimposed upon its lexical sense (or 'stereotype', in Bosch's 1983 framework) the contextually-determined sense 'cold in relation to the temperature normally expected of swimming-pool water'. Clitic pronouns, then,being grammatically defined morphemes akin to agreement inflections which signal the semantic (i.e. case role) and pragmatic (i.e. thematic status) function of a topic argument (cf. Giv6n, 1976 and, more recently, Lambrecht 1981), presuppose the prior encoding of the referent of that argument in terms of a description including as its most prominent component the basic-level noun-predicate by means of which exemplars of the type of entity to which the referent belongs are most naturally distinguished by users from all other types of entity. This is a reflection of the status of clitic pronouns as less than independent referring expressions (see Lambrecht, 198l:fn.30,p.l03, for a list of the formal correlates of this status), their dependency in their capacity as 'antecedentless' pronouns being marked by their obligatory conformity (rather than agreement, in the strict sense) with the gender value of the most prominent nounpredicate of the description encoding their controlling argument's discourse referent within the relevant discoyrse model. In this respect, they are clearly in line with the pronouns signalling an 'attributive' referential perspective upon their discourse referent illustrated in (17)-(20) and (22)a-c, which all agree in gender (as well as in number) with the basic-level noun· predicate used in forming a description for each of the referents concerned, and which is actually made explicit in each case in the textually co-occurrent antecedent-trigger. However, in two of these examples ((19) and (20)), a disjunctive (i.e. 'deictic') pronoun is used which agrees iri gender with its relevant basic-level noun-predicate: namely lui (masc), 'for his (lit.) part', in (19) and lui-m~me (masc), '(lit.) hims~lf', in (20). Both pronouns would receive a high level of stress and pitch if given a spoken realization. This is quite contrary to the prediction of Tasmowski-De Ryck & Verluyten (1982), although it must be said that they did not intend it to cover instances where the pronoun has a textually co-occurrent antecedent-trigger. Yet by not doing so, as I have argued, an important generalisation is missed. Moreover, certain clitic pronouns may and do 'disagree' in gender with their referent's basic-level noun-predicate, where this occurs as part of their antecedent-trigger (cf. the situation obtaining in (16)a,b and the second paragraph of (20)), conforming instead with the perceived sex of their actual referent. It is true, as we have 169

Reference and Anaphora already seen (cf. the hierarchy in terms of reference potential given for the non-demonstrative French pronouns in 4(59),p.l24) that subject clitic pronouns have a higher degree of reference potential, and are in general uttered with a higher level of phonological prominence, than their non-subject (accusative, dative, and oblique) counterparts; and indeed, all three of these pronouns are subject clitics, though they would still be uttered with a relatively low level of phonological prominence. Curiously enough, if the disjunctive pronoun in (24) is replaced by a gender/number-variable demonstrative pronoun, coherence is restored: (24)a~

[Same context as in (24)] Celle-ci,c'est une tr~s belle chemiie. 'This one(fem), it's a very fine shirt'.

There are two reasons why the demonstrative, but not the simple disjunctive, pronoun is possible in this environment (cf. Kleiber,l984): first the predicational context is an identifying rather than predicative, or attributive, one: that is, the referent of the pronoun is asserted to fall within the class of 'very fine shirts'; and second, the situational context of (24) strongly suggests that a distinction is being implied in the utterance of the example between the referent in question and all the other exemplars of its type which are displayed on the same counter but which are implicitly excluded from membership within the class of very fine shirts (cf. also Hawkins's 1978 distinction between the 'inclusive' reference of definite NPs in English in contrast to the 'exclusive' reference of indefinite ones, with demonstrative pronouns or NPs being unmarked with respect to this parameter). Both of these values are expressible via the demonstrative, yet neither is possible with the simple disjunctive pronoun. Nevertheless, it still remains that a deictic pronoun (celle-ci) can be used in a context where it appears to conform in gender to what Tasmowski-De Ryck & Verluyten (1982) call a 'linguistic antecedent' (namely chemise, fern), rather than with the perceived extra-linguistic attributes of its referent. 15 The reason why the use in (24) of a non-demonstrative, disjunctive pronoun conforming in gender with that of the basic-level noun-predicate encoding its referent is unacceptable is surely that pronouns of this type, having the highest degree of reference potential of all pronouns, are restricted in reference to personalized entities in a way that their clitic counterparts are not (cf. Kayne, 1975:86, BlancheBenveniste, 1978:2-13, and also Tasmowski-De Ryck & Verluyten, 1982:336 themselves). Since the linguistic and situational context of (24) does not permit the pronoun's referent to be 170

Reference and Anaphora recategorized in this way, and since the two factors favouring the use of a demonstrative rather than simple pronoun mentioned on the previous page are present, the latter is ruled out. Though there is indeed an important discourse-referential difference between clitic and non-clitic pronouns, and within the non-clitic category, between demonstrative and non-demonstrative ones, it is still the case that it is the speaker who is in control rather than the objective, or even the socioculturally prescribed, features of the referent. That is, given the appropriate linguistic and situational context, a non-human referent, for example, may be coherently recategorized as an individual, personalized entity. And a single, human referent may, under certain circumstances, be recategorized as a member of the socio-cultural sex category opposite to the one to which members of his or her sex are normally assigned; or he or she may even be initially categorized as belonging to neither socio-cultural sex category (e.g. the case of it used in reference to human babies); or indeed, the reference in terms of socio-cultural sex may simply be indeterminate (the case of so-called sex-indefinite they, where the (human) referent is either non-identifiable or the speaker does not want it to be identifiable) (cf. e.g. McConnell-Ginet, 1979 for further examples and discussion). To complete this chapter, I present below a table which attempts to capture the relationships amongst the parameters 'clitic', 'demonstrative' and 'neuter' in defining the various degrees of reference potential exhibited by the French (nonsubject, non-reflexive) third person pronouns. 16 Table 5.1: The French non-subject, non-reflexive third person pronouns Demonstrative

Non Demonstrative

Non-Neuter

Neuter (8)

Non-clitic

ceci~

(6)

Clitic

Te;ra lui~

cela~

r;a

(7) (5)

~

leur

171

Reference and Anaphora It would appear that a pronoun having non-clitic status is more highly referential than one having clitic status, that a nondemonstrative pronoun is more so than a demonstrative one, 17 and that a non-neuter pronoun is more highly referential than a neuter one. The referentiality hierarchy thus extends continuously across the groups numbered (1) to (9) in the Table. As far as the parameters themselves are concerned, one may go a step further and claim that there is even a hierarchy amongst these, such that the pattern of individual third person pronouns as diagrammed in Table 5.1 follows from it. This hierarchy is given in (26): (26)

Hierarchy of parameters defining level of reference potential of French third person pronouns 1. Disjunctiveness > 2. Gender and/or Number Variability

> 3.

Demonstrativity.

(26) should be construed as predicting that a pronoun bearing the property represented at a higher position in the hierarchy will be more highly referential than a pronoun bearing the one occurring at a lower position, whatever other property it may also assume. To be complete, a fourth parameter will have to be included in the hierarchy, namely 'Singularity' • in order to distinguish the pronoun groups numbered (1) and (3), (2) and (4). and (6) and (7). It would be placed in (26) between parameters 2 and 3. The anaphoric function of agreement in gender and number will be further investigated in Chapter 6, to which we now turn.

NOTES 1. This as yet unpublished work only came to my attention when I was preparing the final version of this book for printing. It is listed at the end of the Reference list, on p. 238. 2. Although Reinhart prefixes example {2)b with the asterisk, indicating categorical ill-formedness, I believe that its deviancy is in terms of its potential use as an utterance, and so have prefixed it with the crosshatch instead. 3. This is stated in her interpretive rule {8) from Chapter 1, as follows: {8) A pronoun cannot be interpreted as coreferential with a nonpronoun in its domain, where the domain of a node consists of all the nodes which it c-commands. Reinhart later {cf. Chapter 7) abandons this non-coreference rule, stipulating that only bound anaphora should be accounted for by sentence level rules within the grammar. However, the principle is still considered to be valid, even though it is recognised by Reinhart that various discourse factors may override its predictions. 4. Cf. op.cit.,p.41, the segment I have underlined:

172

Reference and Anaphora (36) A node A c-comrnands node B if the branching node ~ most immediately dominating A either dominates B or is immediately dominated by a node a 1 which dominates B, and 92 is of the same category type as a 1 • 5. I differ from Webber, however, as far as the last-mentioned type is concerned: unless nominalized (e.g. 'whiteness'), such elements do not enjoy an 'entity' status in the discourse, but act as 'functions' at the logicopragmatic level; in this respect, they are akin to non-asserted, nonpresupposed propositions (see 4.1.1.2) in contrast to asserted or presupposed propositions, which correspond to facts. Webber, op.cit., does not appear to recognise this distinction. 6. Cf. the distinction between the two types of pragmatic knowledge which I also drew in 2.2.4. Cf. also Bullwinkle (1977:46-47), who draws essentially the same distinction between 'directly evoked' and latent discourse referents in terms of the 'slot values' of frames ("generalised property list(s) where each generalised property is called a slot", op.cit., p.46) versus the 'slot values of slot values' of frames, as for example when the size (slot value) of the place (slot value) of the 'meeting' frame is talked about in some discourse, the latter two topics having already been instantiated. See also Shanon (1981). 7. This is Webber's (1979) term for various types of identity-of-sense anaphora in which the anaphor substitutes for the description (a semantically rather than syntactically encoded construct) marking the existence within the discourse model of its associated discourse referent, but does not refer to the latter. The examples of French 'neuter' le, y and en functioning as predicate anaphors discussed in 4.2.1.3, in particular, would seem to be most naturally accounted for in terms of "'one'-anaphora", or 'descriptionsubstitution', as I prefer to call it. Cf. the phenomenon known in the literature by the name 'pronouns-of-laziness'. 8. Karttunen op.cit. restricted his examination of discourse referents to 'textually-evoked' entities (to use Prince's 1981 term for this phenomenon) via indefinite NPs. Such expressions are, of course, specialised in performing a rhematic, predicative function in discourse, and cannot be used anaphorically. Heim (1982:231-2) suggests both that indefinite NPs (~/~~)are interpreted as if they were open sentences, of the form 'N (xj) ', which are "true i f and_only i f the value of the variable xj has the property expressed by N" (p.l35); and that the descriptive content of such NPs (i.e. theN, corresponding to a predicate) is asserted (p.232), whereas in the case of definite NPs, the descriptive content is presupposed, "serv(ing) to narrow down the range of things that can be felicitously referred to" (p. 231) by the NP as a whole. The difference thus corresponds to that between restrictive relative clauses, expressing a presupposed proposition, and non-restrictive ones, which constitute independent potential assertions, questions, etc. (cf. 3.1.3 and 3.2.3 above). 9. The proper noun John in (9)a and b would either be replaced by its discourse entity name, if it is interpreted as anaphoric to some already established entity, or, as is the case here (since (9)a is a Level 2 representation) remain as it is: as such, it would be construed as itself introducing a new discourse entity (e.g. •e 2 'J. The lower-case 'e' is mnemonic for 'entity'. The modifier 'just' in 'just-mentioned' is not represented in the formal representation (9)b, however. 10. Bosch, op.cit.p.58ff., presents various tests for distinguishing between 'anaphoric' and 'deictic' occurrences of third person non-demonstrative pronouns in English within the broader phenomenon of 'anaphora proper' (i.e. where the pronoun used is referential rather than purely 'syntactic'). Deictic pronouns are those that occur accompanied by high stress and pitch, and can occur in focus positions (within cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions, and as heads of non-restrictive relative clauses). 11. These are as follows (op.cit.,pp.300-30ll: 'Active' (still under discussion), 'Closed' (previously discussed and completed), 'Open' (previously active but not completed, due to an interruption or digression), 'Controlling' (where an 'event' context space is introduced to exemplify or elaborate on the content of a hitherto 'active' issue context space; the latter then assumes a 'controlling' state with respect to the now 'active' event context space) ,and 'Generating', where an 'issue' context space is introduced to generalize from an aspect of a hitherto active 'event' context space. The latter is then said to be in a 'generating' state in relation to the now active 'issue' one.

173

Reference and Anaphora 12. It is clear that the generalisation being formulated here, to the extent that it is valid, holds only in the case of anaphoric relations in which the antecedent-trigger is a person-referring NP, the gender of whose head noun may or may not conflict with the sex of its referent. The use of the type of referential perspective we are dealing with here is only available where there is a clash between the gender of a person-referring NP and the sex of its human referent. (i) below will therefore be ambiguous in terms of referential perspective: (i) Le ministre de l'Interieur (masc,singl [a male individual] introduira bientot une reforme concernant le financement des services de police. Il (masc,sing) a deja presente un rapport a ce sujet a la commission parlementaire. 'The minister for the Interior [male) will soon introduce a reform relating to the financing of police services. He has already presented a report on this subject to the parliamentary commission'. 13. Tasmowski-De Ryck & Verluyten (1982) specifically argue that clitic, as opposed to independent, or disjunctive, pronouns in French occurring without an antecedent-trigger are in fact controlled by what they call an 'absentee antecedent'. To the extent that this move is valid, it provides strong evidence, not for the theoretical significance of 'antecedents', as traditionally conceived, but rather for the value of the notion 'linguistic reflex' of a discourse referent. See below for further discussion of this. 14. Cf. also Gensler (1977), Brown (1970a), (1970b), Pulman (1983) and Tasmowski-De Ryck & Verluyten (1982:333). Mervis (1980:292) characterizes this as follows: ••• there exists a basic level [categorization) that is the most general level at which categories are formed according to large, naturally occurring attribute clusters. Categories at this level are more differentiated from each other than are categories at any other level. Tbus basic level categories are the most obvious way of dividing the world. Examples would be table vs. chair (basic level), in opposition to furniture (superordinate lev~on the one hand, and to coffee table and rocking chair (subordinate level) on the other. Pulman (1983:60-69) provides four principles governing the 'nameability' of entities by a single, non-collective countable noun. Brown (1970a:7) stresses the fact that, although various aspects of experience may be referred to by a variety of different linguistic expressions, language users nevertheless commonly suppose that for every potential referent there is just one appropriate lexeme which may be used in order to achieve successful reference to it. This is precisely the most common 'name' which is given to the referent "at the level of social utility" that is, the name which is most commonly recognized as a means of referring to some entity for some conventionally recognized purpose. 15. Perhaps a better example than the one given by the authors (namely (24)) to illustrate the 'pragmatic' vs. 'linguistic' controllability of deictic pronouns would be (i), with (i)~ corresponding to my version (24)a~ using the demonstrative rather than the simple disjunctive pronoun: (i)

[Same context as in (24)) #Elle, elle est tr~s belle #'It (fern), it is very fine (fern)'.

(il

Celle-ci, elle est tres belle 'This one (fern), it is very fine'.

In neither of these examples does the basic-level noun-predicate chemise occur, a state of affairs which does not prejudice the outcome of the test which they are intended to perform. Moreover, the authors do in fact acknowledge (1982:fn.6,p.343) that demonstrative deictics such as celui-ci, celui-la appear to be counter-examples to

174

Reference and Anaphora their claim, since the gender value of these demonstratives is obviously controlled by an 'absentee antecedent'. They point out, correctly, that in reality the deictic component of these compound demonstratives is constituted by the deictic particles -ci and -la, which make the pronoun an NP (i.e. a potentially referring expression) instead of the N which celui/celle, etc. individually constitutes. This head N, then, would be linguistically rather than pragmatically controlled when the whole expression is used without a textual antecedent-trigger. The analysis is identical in kind to the account of English reflexive pronouns by Helke (1973) discussed in 3.1.1, in virtue of which the expression can be divided into a bound possessive determiner undergoing syntactic agreement with its controller, and a head N(-self) which 'agrees' with the referential number of that controller. ---16. It is interesting to observe, in passing, that the referentiality hierarchy of pronoun groups amongst (1) and (9) in Table 5.1 is almost exactly reflected in the surface structure linear order of clitic pronouns relative to one another and to the supporting verb: (i)

(ii)

(l)

(6)(9)

Lui, il l'~ empecherait 'As for him, he would prevent him from (doing) it' (9) (5)

Il le lui dira 'He will tell him/her it'

As is well known, there are a variety of phonetic factors which interact with such principles in determining the structure of a clitic-verb sequence. 17. Cf. Harris (1978:84) who rightly suggests that such pronouns in French are not, synchronically speaking, 'demonstrative' at all, having lost their original deictic function, for which they were marked formally.

175

Chapter Six

AGREEMENT AND ANAPHORA

6.0

INTRODUCTION

Agreement has been seen to be of very great importance in the operation of anaphora at a number of points in the book so far: in Chapter 3, in particular, which I ended by suggesting, with Brame (1983), that the three types of 'strict' nominal anaphora investigated there could be analysed as involving a two-stage agreement process as a result of function-argument interpretation; and in Chapter 5 (cf. 5.4), we saw illustrations of differences in referential perspective upon a human referent that could be achieved via the use of two distinct modes of agreement within a third person pronoun in French, as well as the way in which the marking fo-r gender in an 'antecedentless' third-person pronoun in that language was able, in conjunction with various contextual functions, to make available a basiclevel noun-predicate in the language in question which matches its gender value and conventionally names the type of entity of which the actual referent is an exemplar. In the first type of instance (the operation of 'strict' nominal anaphora seen in Chapter 3), the agreement process involved is more or less automatic, the anaphor performing an essentially grammaticosemantic operator-like function in determining both the nature of the derived predicate of which it is an intrinsic part, and, through this, the selection of a potential argument to which that derived predicate can be applied as a function. The choice of controller argument is, however, strictly limited by the grammatical constraints under which this type of anaphor functions. 1 In the second type of instances, however, the agreement (in gender) is quite clearly performing a rather different function, signalling a particular referential perspective upon a specific discourse referent. This difference in function is chiefly due to the important difference in nature between the two types of 'agreement targets' (to use Corbett's 1979, 1983 term for this) involved in each case: in the first 176

Agreement and Anaphora type, these are 'syntactic agreement' pronominal (i.e. nonlexical) anaphors (reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, 'bound' third person pronouns, restrictive relative pronouns, infinitiveor participle-markers), while in the second, they are referentialanaphoric pronouns, possessing a much higher degree of intrinsic reference potential and requiring consideration of the full discourse context for their interpretation. The relationship between pronominal anaphora and agreement (or concord) in person, number and gender has long been noted. 2 Apart from Bosch (1983), recent works arguing for their close connection, or even identity, are Giv6n (1976), Moravcsik (1978), and Lambrecht (1981). However, amongst these, Giv6n and Lambrecht are more concerned with the status of clitic pronouns as a semi-automatic marker of 'topic agreement' in the governing verb, as a transitional stage on the way to becoming an obligatory agreement inflection (the erstwhile topic NP becoming grammaticalised as a subject), than with the pronominal or anaphoric role of agreement inflections more generally. In this chapter, then, I attempt to specify more closely the nature of the relationship between agreement and anaphora, pointing out the parallels that exist between various types of agreement and of pronominal anaphora. I begin by discussing the nature and functions of agreement, distinguishing between a broader sense of this term and a narrower one, for which I use the traditional term 'concord' (6.1); having done this, I go on to discuss in more detail the cohesive function which concord (in French in particular) may fulfil (6.2). 6.3 is devoted to a presentation and discussion of 'controllerless' agreement targets in French, developing the examination of 'antecedentless' third person pronouns begun in 5.4; 6.4 examines the anaphoric import of the distinction (cf. Corbett, 1980) between 'positive' and 'neutral' (or 'negative') concord; and the final section discusses the notion 'degree' of agreement, already implicit in the preceding sections, in the light of Corbett's (1979), (1983) 'Agreement Hierarchy' (cf. also Comrie, 1975, Boel, 1976). 6.1

THE NATURE AND FUNCTIONS OF AGREEMENT: 'AGREEMENT' VS. CONCORD

Agreement in gender, number and person (as well as in other such morpho-syntactic categories), in those languages which exhibit it, would appear to be but one o{ the many devices which contribute to establishing that continuity which all discourses must exhibit if they are to achieve a successful act of communication. Bosch (1983:102) (correctly, in my view) claims that 'morphemes of agreement' are among the set of 'syntactically occurring' expressions which, together with 177

Agreement and Anaphora other such structure-indicating signals, operate upon the denoting or referential expressions which make up discourse, acting as sets of specific instructions to the addressee as to how to go about building a discourse model (a coherent sequence of 'Context Models', in Bosch's framework) of the communication being effected. According to Bosch (1983:103), such signals act logico-pragmatically as functors which assign a specific function to the contentful denoting or referential expressions, which thus act as arguments (Bosch argues cogently that instances of the latter type of expressions may be construed as either functors or arguments, though their syntactic status as, e.g., NPs or VPs, will naturally predispose them to perform one or the other of these 'logico-pragmatic' roles). Bosch (1983:102-3) includes amongst these cohesionindicating signals 'syntactic-agreement pronouns', quantifiers, articles, numerals, logical connectives, non-truthfunctional connectives (therefore 3 but 3 etc.), word order, intonation (both grammatical and discoursal) and turn-taking signals. To these I would add what Bosch calls referential-anaphoric pronouns and other anaphors, as well as deictic anaphors (despite the fact that Bosch specifically classes these expression-types as 'referential' rather than 'syntactic' occurrences- cf. 1983:102), and would place them in the same sub-category as the non-truthfunctional connectives already mentioned (cf. the characterisation of discourse anaphors in 5.2), in contrast to the syntactic-agreement anaphors which would fall within the sub-category that includes the logical connectives, quantifiers, articles, numerals, as well as syntactically-determined word-order and intonation. This kind of distinction is also made by de Beaugrande & Dressler (1981: Ch.4), and we may refer to it as 'micro-' versus 'macrocohesion' (essentially, cohesion operating within the clause, as opposed to cohesion operating between and amongst clauses: in processing terms, this corresponds to 'bottom-up' versus 'top-down' interpretation, respectively). In a somewhat broader sense of the term 'Agreement' than is used in, e.g., Corbett (1983), Moravcsik (1978:334) writes of 'tense agreement' (i.e. sequence of tenses) and 'mood agreement', subsuming dislocation and government within this functional category. In this sense, 'Agreement' is synonymous with the dynamic, process-oriented view of cohesion (used ambiguously to refer both to the productive/interpretative process of discourse integration and to its result), of which 'concord' in gender, number and person is but one manifestation. Cohesion as a process does not apply in a vacuum, as it were, but always as a function of the preceding (and succeeding) discourse context as (re-)constructed by speaker and addressee: that is, the coherence principle regulating discourse under178

Agreement and Anaphora standing in context always guides the addressee in his or her construction of cohesive relations, in applying a particular cohesive functor to one or other of two potential argument expressions (in Bosch's 1983 sense of these terms), where a choice exists. Blinkenberg (1950:21), in his classic monograph on concord in French, provides a definition of the phenomenon which captures both its semantic and its cohesive import: L'accord est ce phenomene morpho-syntactique qu'un mot, qui sous forme de predicat ou d'epithete determine un autre mot de la meme phrase, est determine morphologiquement par la forme et/ou le sens du mot qu'il determine syntactiquement .•. L'accord determine en meme temps par la forme et le sens, nous l'appellerons accord complet, celui determine par la seule forme sera un accord de terme a terme, ou plus simplement un accord avec le terme ou accord formel, celui determine par le seul sens: un accord de terme a sens, ou plus simplement un

accord avec le sens.3

Blinkenberg thus includes within his definition the notion of the interrelationship between grammatico-semantic dependency and morphological marking, allowing for the possibility that the meaning as well as the relevant formal properties of the 'determined word'(=argument) -i.e. the controller- may, in turn, serve to control the feature specification of the 'determining word' (= functor) - i.e. the agreeing term, or 'target'. We have already seen and discussed examples illustrating Blinkenberg's distinction between 'l'accord formel' and 'l'accord avec le sens' (cf. 5.4). However, it was claimed there that in those instances where there was a conflict in the gender value manifested by an anaphoric pronoun and its person-referring antecedent-trigger NP, the discrepancy was sanctioned by pragmatic rather than semantic factors - holding at the utterance- rather than sentence-level, and involving properties of the NP and pronoun as referring expressions invested with an actual rather than merely potential reference. For this reason, I prefer to mark the distinction as one of formal-syntacticvs. referential-semantic concord. Blinkenberg's 'two-way' (semantic dependency ++morphosyntactic dependenc~ definition of concord has been independently formulated by Keenan (1979~167-8), cited in Bosch (1983: 193), in terms of two interdependent rules:

179

Agreement and Anaphora (l)a (B's (253)) Given A and B distinct constituents of a syntactic structure E in a language L,

A agrees with B iff

the form of expressions of A varies with the choice of B. b (B's (254)) Given A and B distinct constituents of a syntactic structure E, A may agree with B

iff

the semantic interpretation of expressions of A varies with the semantic interpretation of expressions of B in the interpretation of E.

That is, B, the controller, determines the morpho-syntactic form of A, the agreement target, when A applies semantically to B (whose interpretation is achieved independently), thereby yielding an interpretation for E, the containing structure; as a consequence of this, B itself is re-interpreted in the light of the integration of both B and A as part of E. I believe this latter aspect of agreement is very important, although it is only implicit in Keenan's formulation. Bosch (1983:193) specifically interprets Keenan's formulation in (l)b in terms of the function-argument structure of expressions: A is construed as a function which "takes interpretations of B as arguments and yields interpretations of A as values". But although Bosch points out the inability of the 'MeaningForm Dependency Principle' (MFDP), as Keenan (1979a) called (l)b, to predict instances where it is the predicate which determines the contextual interpretation of the subject NP to which it is applied (as in That newspaper is renting an office block in the city centre~ in contrast to That newspaper is too expensive) he does not suggest a viable solution. The problem arises, according to Bosch (pp.l93-4), because Keenan assumes a rigid one-to-one correspondence between expressions of specific syntactic types (e.g. NPs vs. VPs) and those of specific functional types (respectively, arguments vs. functions). In the case of the 'minimal pair' just cited, the interpretation of the subject NP is clearly relativized to that of its predicate which, at this level in the interpretation process, has the value of a constant. Bosch's suggestion is that in such cases as these, there is 'interdependence' between the subject and predicate expressions, the latter applying (as I interpret it) in its customary role as functor taking the (presumably literal) interpretation of the subject expression as its argument, and thereby yielding a value in context for itself; after which, the subject expression takes the role of functor, applying (recursively, as it were) to the already established value of the predicate acting as its argument, and 180

Agreement and Anaphora yielding in turn the 'relativized' value which it assumes in each of the contexts in question. But Bosch then goes on to assert (1983:197) that the typical asymmetry between function and argument roles stereotypically performed by predicate and subject expressions, respectively, is not manifested by agreeing forms with respect to their controllers: for in the case of the agreeing forms he is most concerned with, namely 'syntactic-agreement pronouns' (SPs), these may occur both within functors or within argument expressions and are controlled by their corresponding argument expressions and functors. Yet agreement morphemes (and SPs are claimed to be nothing more than non-referential bundles of agreement feature specifications in number, gender and person which happen to be realised (in English) in the form of an independent pronoun) are not themselves arguments, nor is it evident that they can act as functions; and in any case, it would seem that they occur preferentially as parts of complex (derived) predicates (which, as I have claimed, they are instrumental in creating, via their role as operators), which type of expression acts stereotypically in discourse as a function rather than an argument, as Bosch himself concedes. Bosch (1983:191) indeed actually enshrines this tendency in the form of a principle:

the SP expresses agreement with that expression to which the comp~ex predicate of which the SP forms a part is applied (italicized in the text).

A further defect in Bosch's account stems from his restriction of 'agreement phenomena' to subject-verb agreement (which he does not examine in any detail) and to controllerpredicate agreement, where the syntactic pronoun as well as the finite verb within a complex predicate are marked for the controller's relevant feature values (potential controllers of syntactic pronouns being direct and indirect object NPs as well as subject ones) - this latter type being a kind of VP agreement (1983:190). But certain types of agreement(in the example below, subject-verb agreement in number) can achieve a similar adjustment in the interpretation of the controller expression to the lexically-specified predicate illustrated in the first member of the pair of examples presented on p. 180: (Z)a b

The government have agreed to withdraw the proposed bill. The government has agreed to withdraw the proposed bill.

Here, the choice of the plural inflection in have in (2)a over the singular in (2)b assigns the 'secondary' interpretation 181

Agreement and Anaphora 'distributive', or 'set of individual members' to its controller NP, headed by a collective noun; while the singular inflection in (2)b confirms the latter's 'default' or primary interpretation, 'collective unit'. In highlighting the 'individual' reading of its controller in (2)a, the plural inflection indirectly contributes an agentive interpretation to the sentence as a whole which is absent from (2)b (cf. the similar secondary agentive interpretation assigned to the relevant sentences by the choice of the predicate anaphor do it instead of do so in 4(26)a and 4(27)a in 4.1.1.2). This is a function which is very similar to that performed by the singular indefinite article, in conjunction with singular number marking, in introducing normally uncountable nouns, or by the zero article or some (/s~/) with normally countable nouns (cf. Allan, 1981), as in (3)a,b and (4)a,b respectively: (3)a b

John bought a red wine at the supermarket. John bought some

(/s~/)

red wine at the supermarket.

(4)a

Mary found ¢ chicken in the restaurant

b

Mary found a chicken in the restaurant

In (3)a, as opposed to the more usual (3)b, the choice of a instead of Is~/ assigns to the determined N the secondary interpretation 'brand of x', while in (4)a, in contrast to the more expected (4)b, the zero article assigns to its head noun the interpretation 'cooked meat from the animal'. In both instances, it is the signal 'individuation' in the case of the indefinite article a in (3)a (together with the number contrast, which is neutralized in (3)b), and 'non-discrete' (i.e. 'substance') in that of the zero article allied with the absence of number contrast in (4)a, which determine the nature of the referent of the NPs involved. As Allan (1981:157) points out, the precise nature of the reference established in each case (i.e. 'brand of x' in (3)a and 'cooked meat from y' in (4)a) is determined by various pragmatic parameters relating to the nature of the utterance context and socio-cultural real-world knowledge. Yet another similar effect is obtained in French via the choice of a clitic pronoun of a certain type instead of a disjunctive one, where such a choice is possible. BlancheBenveniste (1978) presents the following contrast: (S)a b 182

(B-B's (36)a) Ses amies, il y pense. 'His girl-friends, he thinks of them'.

a

(B-B's (36)b) Ses amies, il pense elles. 'His girl-friends, he thinks of

th~m'.

Agreement and Anaphora In (S)a, as Blanche-Benveniste notes, the antecedent-trigger

ses amies is recategorised by the y+verb construction, which

superimposes upon it the characteristic feature value 'nonindividual' (the clitic y being a 'neuter' adverbial- cf. 4.2.1.3); in the context in which (5)a is uttered, this would yield the full interpretation 'set of X's' for the topic NP. In (S)b, on the other hand, the pronoun is disjunctive. Hence, the topic NP is not recategorised but brought into a relation of lexical equivalence with the referent of the pronoun, eZZes here being a quasi-independent referring expression. Thus ses amies in (5)b is interpreted preferentially such that the referent of iZ thinks of each of his girl-friends individually, rather than collectively as a set. In each of these three types of case (verb agreement, article in conjunction with presence or absence of a number contrast, and clitic vs. disjunctive pronoun), we may say that the cohesion-signalling device triggers a function which then applies to its controller argument to yield a specific value within the utterance context in question (a particular mode of reference). Thus although agreement inflections are not in themselves functors, they are capable of triggering particular functions which apply retroactively, as it were, to determine the nature of their controllers' reference. 6.2

CONCORD, COHESION, AND 'STRUCTURAL DISTANCE'

Let us examine, first of all, various types of cohesionindicating devices which perform a similar function to concord, before isolating the kinds of environment in which the latter operates and, finally, discussing the criterial notion of 'structural distance' between controller and agreement target. Moravcsik (1978:fn.2,p.334) refers, for example, to the analogy drawn by Chomsky (1965:175-6) between the phonological process of assimilation and the morpho-syntactic phenomenon of concord. Chomsky's interest in the comparison lay in the formal similarity of the rules which account for both types of process, but it is clear too that there is a functional similarity, in that both processes mark the cohesion of the related form. Another important cohesive device, operating at the phonosyntactic level, is liaison in French. Liaison may indeed be said to have the same demarcative and structure-indicating function that nominal concord clearly has. Observe the following contrast: (6)a

Notre enfant est_intelligent. 'Our child is intelligent'. 183

Agreement and Anaphora b *Notre enfant_est intelligent. (examples from Bally, 1965:102; indicated by underlining).

liaisons are

Here, the structural relationship betweenest 'is' and inteZligent (a predicate-internal on~ is closer than that between enfant 'child' and est 4 , and it is liaison between the former pair rather than the latter which marks this, even though the phonetic conditions for the operation of liaison are satisfied in both environments. The liaison indicated by the underlining in (6)a is, of course, optional. However, it remains the case that the closer the grammatical relationship between adjacent words (i.e. the greater the degree of grammatical cohesion between them), the more obligatory the application of the relevant liaison rule becomes: (7)a

les_enfants(-)heureux.

b

les heureux enfants.

c

*les heureux enfants. X

X

'the happy children'. (N.B. Parentheses indicate that liaison is optional, and a subscripted 'x' indicates absence of liaison). As is well known, the unmarked position for attributive adjectives in French is following rather than preceding the noun they modify. Thus, pre-posing the adjective results in certain marked semantic effects in the case of the apparently relatively small sub-set of adjectives which may assume either position 5 • The greater degree of grammatical cohesion obtaining between preposed adjective and noun than between postposed adjective and noun is reflected in the following facts: 1. Liaison between the former pair of expressions is obligatory when the phonetic conditions for its application are satisfied, whereas liaison between the latter pair is only optional (cf. the contrast amongst (7)b, c and a). Liaison is also obligatory, where the phonetic conditions for it obtain, between an obligatorily preceding determiner (cf. les in (7)a-c) and an adjective or noun. 2. Concord in terms of grammatical rather than referential gender (and number) is obligatory between the former pair, yet optional (at least, in certain non-formal varieties of the language) between the latter. Boel's (1976) survey of current uses of female-denoting NPs in French yielded several attested examples exhibiting a conflict in gender-marking when the adjective followed the noun, yet provided none when the adjective preceded (cf. 1976: 65-66; this is also consistent with Corbett's

184

Agreement and Anaphora 1979,1983 'Agreement Hierarchy', to be discussed in 6.5). 3. As is well known, the nature of the semantic modification is systematically different when the adjective precedes the noun it modifies and when it follows it. The sense of a preposed adjective qualifies the sense only of its head noun; whereas the sense of a postposed adjective qualifies both the sense and the reference of its noun. The qualification is thus intensional in the former case, and extensional in the latter. This third factor, in particular, enables us to pinpoint the reason behind the differences we have noted: the preposed adjective modifies the noun, which is not itself a potentially referring expression. The postposed adjective, on the other hand, modifies, not the preceding noun, but the noun phrase constituted by the preceding determiner plus (preposed adjective +) noun as a whole, a unit which is a potentially referring expression (cf. also Sangster, 1982:127-130). Of the nominal agreement features made use of by the European languages (namely, gender, number, person, animacy and definiteness), the majority are what might be called ~eictic-pronominal' in character, associated with NPs (i.e. essentially referring expressions) rather than with nouns (essentially predicative expressions). Referential gender, number, person and definiteness all fall into the former category; while grammatical gender, number and animacy are categories pertaining to nouns rather than to noun phrases. Significantly, verbs and pronouns are both categories which enter into NPexternal concord relations, not with the head noun of an NP, but with the full NP itself6. To this extent, the concord obtaining between a postposed adjective in French and its modified noun may be said to constitute an NP-external relation. We may say, then, that it is because NP-internal elements contract a grammatical relation with a noun (the head noun of the NP in question), which unlike the NP is not a potentially referring expression, that agreements effected within this domain tend to be in terms of grammatical rather than referential feature values. Correspondingly, it is because NPexternal elements contract a grammatical relation, in most instances, with a full NP rather than with its head noun alone, that agreements manifested by such elements tend to be in terms of referential rather than grammatical feature values. In addition, as example 5(20) clearly showed, there are a number of utterance-bound factors which affect the operation of concord over and above the purely linguistic ones defining the domain of its operation. Table 6.1 below presents some of the cohesive devices available within the European languages and the different domains within which they operate. It will be seen from this table that, of the six positions recognised in the hierarchy, personal pronouns occupy those in 4 and 5, a state of affairs 185

0'\

1-' 00

+

-1-

Relatively more semantic/ pragmatic (Coherence)

(Cohesion) Relatively more formal vowels and consonants

2. Phono-syntactic (phrase-internal)

6. Discourse (interverbs (in adjacent clausal;controller clauses only) in main clause,agreeing term in subordinatE clause)

(NP-internal)

determiners, preposed attributive c adjectives 0 4. Syntactic (NP-external, verbs, 'strict' anaphors but sentence-bound) N predicative adjectives and participles, c predicate nominals 0 s. Syntactic/Discourse non-restrictive relativE R pronouns (restricted to operation in adjaD cent clauses),personal 'referential'pronouns

3. Syntactic

vowels and consonants

Agreeing terms

1. Phonetic (segmental)

level

Domain of operation

agreement in terms of tense, aspect and mood

agreement in terms of relevant referential features of antecedent NP

agreement in terms of relevant grammatical features of head noun agreement in terms either of relevant grammatical, or referential features of controller NP

liaison (in French)

assimilation in terms of phonetic features

Possible type of agreement

Agreement relations (in the broad sense of the term) and their respective domains of operation

Position on I cline between cohesion an' coherence

Table 6.1

'

I

;s

~ ()

{l

4 ;:s

~

§

ct-

~;:s

til

4

~til

Agreement and Anaphora which indicates their intermediate status with respect to the poles of formal cohesion and pragmatic coherence. Concord is represented by those relations specified in positions 3, 4 and 5 in the hierarchy - that is, by those relations in which the controller term is an N or an NP. The notion 'structural distance' (cf. also Corbett, 1979, 1983) is definable in terms of the notion cohesion, which is itself a relative rather than absolute concept. Structural distance refers to the degree to which two elements are integrated in terms of some grammatico-semantic relation within a higher-level structure. The lowest degree of structural distance existing between two elements is represented by the mutual dependence of word-internal morphemes, between which it is impossible to insert any element (cf. the French compounds grand-m~re, mort-n~(e)): Blinkenberg's 1950 examples). In such instances, the cohesion between the two hitherto independent elements has come to be so great that the originally adjectivenoun or adverb-adjective structure to which they correspond has been lexicalized into a single lexeme. This status is marked by the lack of formal concord between the original adjective and its former head noun or adjective and participle, both elements being agreement targets in this instance (cf. *grande-m~re,?morte-n~e; recall also Keenan's strictures in the definitions of agreement in (l)a,b, namely, " .•. A and B distinct constituents of a syntactic structure E .. "). This, then, represents the lower limit on the functioning of concord, according to Blinkenberg (1950:169). The second lowest degree of structural distance between two elements is represented by the grammatical relations holding amongst phrase- or group-internal constituents. Here, there is a limited degree of flexibility as far as the linear order, as well as the insertability, of elements is concerned. Examples from French and English would be noun phrases, in which articles and other determiners can only precede their head noun, their mutual ordering being strictly constrained; and French verb groups (Vs) consisting of a series of proclitic elements and their supporting head verb 7 . In both cases, there is (grammatical) concord between noun and dependent determiners, and between a clitic subject pronoun and verb (in number and person) as well as between clitic object and past participle (in gender and number), if there is one. This second lowest degree of structural distance, then, corresponds to what Blinkenberg (1950:18) calls "(la) cohesion moyenne" ('mediumlevel cohesion'), a degree of cohesion which he claims is always presupposed by the marking of concord relations between elements. The concord obtaining between elements manifesting this degree of structural distance is always (as expected) formal (i.e. purely grammatical) rather than referential-semantic in character. Blinkenberg, indeed, notes this fact in connection

187

Agreement and Anaphora with article-noun concord: "Par le fait de la grande cohesion du groupe article-nom, un accord irregulier est presque exclu" 8 , 1950:166). The third degree of structural distance is that represented by the relations obtaining between phrases within a clause. The grammatical relations obtaining between subjects and predicates (predicative adjectives, predicate nominals), as well as between intra-clausal full NPs and third person pronouns (i.e. Bosch's 'syntactic agreement pronouns' ) are reflected in their greater propensity for concord in terms of their controllers' relevant referential-semantic features. Finally, the fourth, and highest, degree of structural distance between two elements is represented by relations holding inter-clausally between referentially autonomous phrases or clauses (as exemplified by those relations indicated at positions 5 and 6 in Table 6.1). Agreement, in the broad sense, is but the manifestation of semantic or pragmatic conformity between two or more expressions, or between the status of a referent and the interpretation of an indexical expression or form within a domain of reference. The instances of the third person pronoun in English and French discussed in Chapter 5 manifest 'agreement' in this broad sense, in that their form and the environment in which they occur both presuppose and maintain a discourse referent bearing a medium or high level of focus; demonstrative and personal pronouns uttered with a high level of pitch and stress, however, signal the transition of a latent discourse referent from low or zero focus to high, and thu~ the potential introduction of a new (sub-)topic, and its corollary, the emergence of a new context space within the current domain of reference, or of a new domain of reference (i.e. Reichman's 1978 'Total Shift Relation' - cf. 5.1 and 5.3 above). This 'agreement' between type and form of indexical expression and presupposed discourse status of its referent is itself the reflex of the discourse 'agreement' (i.e. coherence) which can be inferred between the discourse segment containing the indexical expression and that containing its antecedent-trigger. 9 Thus the occurrence of an anaphor of a particular type and form may be seen as the signal of the mode of integration into its discourse context of the containing utterance, in the same kind of way that the concord inflection borne by a non-pronominal agreement target signals both the existence of a particular grammatico-semantic relation within a group, phrase or clause, and, as we have seen (cf. Chapter 3 in particular), its controller's mode of reference in context. Cohesion rests upon coherence and is not independent of aspects of meaning-in-context. The same applies, as we saw in Chapter 3, to the operation of 'strict' anaphora. Indeed, Keenan's MFDP,

188

Agreement and Anaphora with which we began our discussion of concord and other cohesive relations, is explicitly framed in semantic terms (cf. (l)b). I shall be exploiting the notion 'structural distance' in particular in 6.5, in discussing the concept of an 'Agreement Hierarchy' . 6. 3

1

CONTROLLERLESS

1

AGREEMENT TARGETS

Let us turn now to the question of the relation between agreement inflections and pronominal anaphora, in regard particularly to the phenomenon of 'antecedentless' pronominal anaphora presented in 5.4. It has been claimed (e.g. in Giv6n, 1976 and Bosch, 1983 - the latter in connection with what he calls 'syntactic agreement pronouns', at least) that agreement inflections are equivalent in function to 'bound' or non-referring pronouns, the former indeed originating out of the latter via a process of syntacticization. However, like gender- and number-variable third person pronouns, agreement inflections nevertheless, under certain conditions, have the necessary degree of 'deicticity' to refer without the co-presence of a controller expression. The agreement targets I shall illustrate and discuss in this section include articles and other determiners, postposed attributive adjectives, and predicative adjectives and participles. Consider the following examples: (8)

Article

[At the bar of a cafe in France. waiter:]

Customer to

-Un creme, s'il vous plait!

'A (masc) white coffee, please!' (Lit.: 'A whipped-cream (one), please!')

( 9)

Artie les

[Manager of car-hire firm to customer, in the presence of a range of cars] -Vous prendrez la Renault ou la Peugeot, Monsieur? 'Will you take the (fern) Renault or the (fern) Peugeot, Sir?'

(10)

Article + postposed attributive adjective

[At a fruit and vegetable stall in the market. Shopper, in front of a display of oranges of different sizes, to salesman:] -Un kilo, s'il vous plait. Et donnez-moi plutot des grosses, voulez-vous? 189

Agreement and Anaphora 'One kilo, please. And give me more of the large (fem,plur) ones, will you?' (Example adapted from Mok's 1968 (3)a, p.72). (ll)

Postposed attributive/predicative adjectives

[Roadside advertisement in France: large poster displaying a colour photograph of a Renault car, with the caption:] -Spacieuse, sure, economique 'Spacious (fem,sing), reliable (fem,sing), economical' .

(12)

Past participle functioning as postposed attributive/ predicative adjective [Notice on gates leading to public parks in Paris: picture of a dachshund in profile, crossed through by two thick red diagonal lines, with the caption:] -Meme tenus en laisse. 'Even held (masc,plur) on a lead'.

Yet these examples clearly indicate, it would seem, that it is not the agreement inflections in themselves which refer, but rather the elliptical element or phrase of which they form an indispensable component. To see this, compare (10)#, where the adjective is pre- rather than postposed, with (10), where it is clearly postposed (cf. ?*des grosses oranges/d~ grosses

oranges):

(10)# [Same situation as in (10)]

!!- ... Et donnez-moi plutot de grosses

~,

s 'il vous plait.

The degree of syntactic independence (and hence, of independent reference potential) of pre~osed adjectives is lower than those of postposed ones, as we saw in 6.2; and it is this property, I would claim, which enables the latter adjectives, but not the former, to form the head of an elliptical NP which is capable of referring independently of an appropriate controller. 10 (12) is interesting in that it is another instance of the general phenomenon discussed in Chapters 4 and 5, whereby an anaphoric expression triggers the transition to high focus of a discourse referent whose focus until that point was either zero or low. The apparent referent of the elliptical form tenus 'held' (masc,plur) (which has both nominal and predicative properties) is the single entity depicted on the public notice, which, though recognisable as a dachshund, is intended to represent the genus of which it is a species: namely dog (chien~ 190

Agreement and Anaphora masc; cf. voiture 'car' (fern) in ( 9 )). But evidently, the symbolic image of a dog is here not the referent of the elliptical expression tenus; it is clearly intended to act, precisely, as a symbol determining, iconically (in a conventionally established way, recognisable as such), for the addressee - potential park-users - a referent via his/her conventional recognition of the characteristic reference of symbols of this sort to stereotypes rather than specific entities, as well as via the gender and number values borne by the agreeing term. We noted in 5.4 that the number of a French NP is most frequently a property of the NP as a unit rather than of its head noun in isolation; and that, conversely, an NP's gender is in most instances primarily a property of its head noun and only secondarily a property of the dominating NP. We also noted that this factor enables third person pronouns in that language, when not bound by their controllers, to assume a number value distinct from that for which their antecedenttriggers are specified more readily than they can exhibit a distinct gender value. 11 This suggests that number and gender, when they are realised simultaneously in some expression, perform different functions and thus have different properties. In the case of tenus in (12), the masculine gender value (-u-) both determines and is determined by the masculine noun chien (the relevant basic-level noun-predicate here), thus fulfilling a clearly anaphoric role. It is the plural number value ·(-s) (realised only in the written medium), however, which contributes the referential value to the expression as a whole in determining a particular referential perspective on the referent ('dogs in general'., 'all dogs'; cf. 5.4 and 6.2): for the NP les chiens 'dogs' would be the unmarked choice of expression in French for general reference to any member of the class of dogs, le chien achieving a much more specific reference to the class as a whole (represented by some particular dog) in implicit contrast with some other genus. Compare (12) with the bizarre (12)', where tenu assumes a singular number value:

(12)' [Same context as in (12)] ?#Meme tenu (masc,sing) en laisse. An interesting (attested) example of the way in which number marking can create a particular referential perspective, which here concerns agreement in the predicate and in the demonstrative pronoun, is given in (13):

(13)

[Handwritten notice on gate of public tennis court, South-West France:] "Tout jeune de moins de 17 ans (ayant la carte de tennis) et desirant prendre des cours de tennis 191

Agreement and Anaphora (gratuit pour l'instant) sont pries de s'inscrire sur cette liste en indiquant l'age pour les moins de 15 ans (Ceux qui n'ont pas la carte peuvent s'inscrire a condition de la prendre) ..• " 'Any young person under 17 (possessing the tennis membership card) and wishing to take tennis lessons (free of charge, for the moment) is (III,plur) urged (masc,plur) to register on this list by indicating (his/their) age for those under 15 (Those who do not have the card may register on condition that they obtain it) .•• 1 This is clearly a discourse-determined phenomenon, as the evident ungrammaticality of *Tout jeune sont pri~s de .. . and even of *Tout jeune de mains de 17 ans sont pri~s de ... , indicates. In fact, (13) is in one sense analogous to (12): for in both cases, the agreeing term occurs in an environment where its syntactic (and thus referential) autonomy is of a sufficiently high degree for it to assume a partially independent reference value in relation to its controller. In the case of (12), there is no controller as such, but the accompanying picture which serves as a stimulus for the inference of a specific lexeme is referentially singular; and in the case of (13), the parenthetical and conjoined cluses separating the grammatically singular subject NP from its verb have clearly served to increase the degree of structural distance between them. Corbett (1983:138) also notes the clear tendency in Slavic languages for 'semantically justifiable' agreement to occur in the predicate the further distant its preceding controller is from it (further factors favouring this type of agreement are claimed to be subject-predicate order, the animacy of the subject, and the active as opposed to stative semantics of the predicate). An even more extreme example of the same general kind is (14), where a conflict in both gender- and number-value between the anaphor and its controller serves not merely to effect a change in referential perspective on the referent introduced by the latter, but to trigger a quite distinct (though evidently related) discourse referent: (14)

"Dans les eaux situees entre 0 et 12 milles autour des Iles Britanniques, ae dernier proposait de "g~ler" les quotas de capture des p~cheurs continentaux au niveau de 1977 •.• " (Le Monde, 26-27.11.78). 'In the waters situated between 0 and 12 sea miles around the British Isles (fem,plur), this/the latter (masc,sing) suggested "freezing" the catch quotas

192

Agreement and Anaphora of continental fishermen to the 1977 level •.. ' Here, the role of the anaphor's predicate as well as of the inferred referent's tacit 'proper name' become peculiarly transparent. Gouet (1976) and Morin (1977) both address themselves to the problem of determining the means whereby the gender value of such controllerless targets is assigned. Gouet claimed that, in the case of such instances as (8) and (9 ), where the apparent controller either differs in gender value (the case of cr~me (fern) in ( 8)) or has no inherent gender (the case of the proper namesRenault and Peugeot in (9 )), the entire elliptical NP is derived by a process of syntactic deletion from an underlying fully expanded NP containing the agreement target's actual controller. This might perhaps work in the case of ( 9) (i.e. la voiture de (laJ marque Renault/Peugeot 'the car (fern) of the make Renault/Peugeot'), but not in that of ( 8)(where the underlying NP would be something like une tasse de caf~ avec de la cr~me, 'a cup (fern) of coffee (masc) with cream (fern)~. In the latter case, Gouet's system predicts a feminine gender in the article of the elliptical form (namely,~Une tii$~ ¢~¢if~ i~~¢ ¢~ Zi cr~me), yet the masculine form, as in ( 8), is the only one possible. Furthermore, not only would the strings to be deleted have to be infinitely variable (a lexically distinct description needing to be set up for each such elliptical NP), thus rendering the deletion unrecoverable in every case, but also the deleted segments do not always even correspond to a constituent. Morin (1977), in his reply to Gouet, claims that it is not the container noun in elliptical forms such as (8 ) which determines the article's gender value, but the liquid-denoting noun (namely, caf~, in the case of (8 )). Morin proposes that the assignment of gender in such cases as these is a lexical rather than syntactic matter. As we noted in 5.4, the gender of the elliptical, pragmatically-controlled NP will tend to correspond to that of the basic-level noun used for exemplars of its referent. Thus, Renault, Peugeot, etc, are subordinatelevel names of types of car (voiture, fern). Moreover, neologisms tend to assume the same gender value as their corresponding basic-level noun (Morin calls this the 'generic' noun): autoroute 'motorway' and automobile were apparently masculine when first coined, but later came to assume the feminine gender through the influence of the corresponding basic-level nouns route (fern) and voiture (fern), respectively. In addition, we might add the fact that foreign loan words imported into French also tend to assume the same gender value as their corresponding basic-level noun in that language. Finally, Morin observes that slang words in French also tend to exhibit the same gender as their basic-level noun. 193

Agreement and Anaphora Nevertheless, the relationship is not completely regular, a fact which suggests its lexical rather than syntactic source. (15) gives a set of examples of brand names whose gender does not always match that of their basic-level noun. These elliptical NPs are presumably to be understood in the sense of 'un verre de .• 1 ('a glass (masc) of •. '), though Morin does not make this explicit. (15)

(M' s (6)) une (fern) liqueur

une (fern) une (fern) une (fern) un (mas c) un (mas c) un (mas c)

une (fern) eau de vie : une (fern) une (sic) ('brandy/spirits') un (masc) un (masc)

Chartreuse, Benedictine, Marie-Brizard, Grand-Marnier, Cura~ao,

Cherry Brandy;

Vodka, Banantyne, Black and White, Teachers;

une (fern) eau min~rale: une (fern) Vitelloise, ('mineral water')

un(e)(masc/fem)Orangina, une(fem) Badoit, un(e)(masc/fem) Vichy, un(e)(masc/fem) Vittel, un(masc) Perrier, un(e)(masc/fem) Evian .••

In the case of wines, however, the relationship between the gender of an elliptical NP referring to a kind of wine according to its geographical area of origin and that of the corresponding basic-level noun is a regular one: un Bourgogne, un Bordeaux, un Saint-Emilion, un CDte-du-RhDne, ... as a function of vin (masc) 'wine'. Let us, at this point, examine these conflicts in gender in more detail, since Morin himself does not do so. As far as the conflicts apparent in US) are concerned, it may be possible to go some way towards accounting for the discrepancies there, as well as for those apparent in the case of acronyms such as H.L.M. (masc) in relation to the gender of the head noun (Habitation (fern) ~Loyer Moder~ , 'Moderate-Rent Accommodation', i.e. block of council flats), by claiming that there is a greater or lesser degree of tension, in any particular instance, amongst the following four gender-determining forces - any one of which, for one reason or another, may gain priority over the others:

(16)

Gender-determining forces (in French)l 2 (a) The suffix of a word (e.g. masc: -ier, -at, -age; fern: -tion, -t~. -oise);

194

Agreement and Anaphora (b) The syllabic structure of the word, its 'sonority'; (c) The gender of the word's corresponding basiclevel noun; (d) The sense and/or denotation of the word. Factors (a) and (b) have been convincingly shown to be relevant to the ways in which French native speakers assign gender to nouns which they have never previously encountered, in a series of experiments conducted in Montreal by Tucker, Lambert and Rigault of McGill University (described in Tucker, Lambert & Rigault, 1977). Zubin & Koepcke (1981) conclude that there is a similar interplay of forces of these kinds which determines the gender of nouns (whether basic or derived) in German. They note, as I do for French, that there are specifically cultural as well as communicative factors which contribute to determining the gender of person-denoting nouns in particular, and that gender cannot therefore be an entirely arbitrary linguistic category. 13 Thus, in (15), there is congruence between the suffixes B~n~dictine, on the one hand, and the gender of their basic-level noun, on the other. The habitually female-denoting noun Marie in the compound MarieBrizard, in conjunction with the feminine gender of the basiclevel noun, takes priority over the typically masculine suffix -ard in assigning feminine gender to this elliptical NP. The masculine -ier as well as the masculine concord signalled by the adjective in Grand Marnier, and aspects of the sonotity of Curarao and Cherry Brandy (in particular, the 'hardness' of the initial velar plosive in the former lexeme, and the consonant cluster or affricate /tf/ - foreign to French phonematics in the latter) take priority over the force exerted by the noun 1 s basic-level lexeme in assigning the masculine gender to these NPs. It appears that the surface presence of relevant formal features (all other things being equal) always enjoys priority over absent, yet associated ones.. The remaining elliptical NPs which show a discrepancy in gender with respect to their basic-level nouns can be analysed in a similar fashion.

-euse and -ine (both fern) in Chartreuse and

In all the elliptical examples containing a determiner which I have presented so far, it is the article or determiner which performs the pronominal function. I would argue (contra e.g. Smith, 1978) that such examples exhibit a head (pronominal article or determiner) + modifier (adjective/noun) structure, rather than one of modifier (determiner) + head (adjective/ noun).

195

Agreement and Anaphora 6.4

'POSITIVE' VS. 'NEUTRAL' CONCORD

Having studied so far in this chapter the distinction between the more strictly anaphoric formal-syntactic concord and the more fully deictic referential-semantic concord (both of which may be termed instances of 'positive' concord, related to corresponding varieties of nominal anaphora), I now examine a second distinction which is operative within the general domain of concord. This type of concord correlates, as we shall see, with predicate anaphora. Following Corbett (1980), I shall call this type 'neutral' concord, in opposition to the two subtypes of 'positive' concord already discussed. As in the case of the choice (where such is possible) between formal-syntactic and referential-semantic concord, the selection of positive or neutral concord (again, where a choice is possible) is a function of the type of referential perspective which the speaker wishes to express upon his/her referent. This is still further evidence of the semantic/pragmatic basis of concord. Formally speaking, neutral concord in French is realised by the unmarked values of the various concord features: singular number, masculine gender, and third person. It occurs whenever the controller expression is a nominalized verb(-phrase), or an infinitive or clause functioning as a noun phrase indeed, whenever the head of the controller phrase is something other than an inherent noun. However, it may also occur when the controller is headed by an inherently nominal (i.e. gendermarked) constituent. In such cases, the controller is nominal in status, but either lacks or is treated as lacking any specification for the features which all inherently nominal (i.e. noun-headed) expressions normally exhibit (that is, [±masc, ±sing]). It is operative not only between subjects and their predicates: it may also obtain between noun and article, as in the case of the nominal use of inherently non-nominal expressions (cf. le vrai 'the true', le bien 'the good/what is good', le qu'en dira-t-on '(the) gossipping'), as well as in the case of certain inherently nominal ones (cf. le linguistique 'the linguistic' vs. la linguistique 'linguistics'). Invoking our earlier distinction between the statuses of number and gender, we may say that it is because expressions of the former type are not inherently nominal that they lack a specification for gender; and that, because both they and members of the other, inherently nominal sub-type are not being used as referring expressions, they lack a specification for number. When topicalized, or serving as 'afterthought topics' (cf. Giv6n, 1976), the pronominal place-holder for such expressions in subject or object positions is the neuter demonstrative cela/~a:

(17)a 196

Pleurer, cela ne sert strictement a rien. 'Crying, that's absolutely no use at all'.

Agreement and Anaphora b

Qu'ils n'aient rien trouve de plus positif, cela nous a etonnes. 'The fact that they should have found nothing more positive, that astonished US I •

Note also examples like ( 18) a: (18)a "L'ecologie est quelque chose (fern) de tres confus (masc)[cf. *confuse (fern) -FC] l l'heure actuelle" (Radio France, 1981) 'Ecology is something very confused (masc) at the moment 1 • b (my verson) L'ecologie est une chose tres confuse (fem)/la chose la (fern) plus confuse (fern) qu'on puisse imaginer l l'heure actuelle. 'Ecology is a very confused (fern) thing/the (fern) most confused (fern) thing one could imagine, at the moment'. When conjoined, inherently non-nominal expressions, acting as controllers, do not normally determine plural concord in agreeing terms. (19)a and b are thus alike in this respect: (19)a Gemir, pleurer, prier est egalement lache (Blinkenberg, 1950:80). 1 4 'Moaning, weeping, beseeching is (sing) equally cowardly'. b Le pour et le contre n'est pas a sa place ici.(ibid.,p.86). 'The pros and cons are (sing) not in place here. 1 Two further attested examples of subject-verb neutral concord, this time in English, are given below: (20)a " ... But women in top jobs is still rare, a point which Germaine Greer takes up ... " (BBC World Service, 25.4.80) b "More students means more mandatory grants ••. " (Times Higher Education Supplement, 14.8.8l,p.8) Corbett (1980) is an attempt to show that what he calls neutral agreement is a distinct, independent type of concord with specific morphological and syntactic properties. Although he does not argue specifically for this, I would add that it must also be said to have its own referential-semantic properties, properties which distinguish it from other types of concord in this area as well. In support of his argument, Corbett presents data from two Slavic languages (Russian and Ukrainian,and one Romance (Surselvan, a dialect of Romansh) to 197

Agreement and Anaphora illustrate the morphological and syntactic differences between 'neuter' and 'neutral' concord. Such languages provide morphological grounds, in addition to the purely syntactic evidence provided by English and French, for positing the distinctness of 'neutral' concord, in that their least marked agreement form (the neuter singular) is distinct from the form used to realise neutral concord. My interest in Corbett's data is restricted here to those contrasts which appear to be determined by referential factors. in

In Ukrainian,the neuter form of predicative adjectives is whereas neutral concord is marked by an -o ending:

-e~

(21) (C's (12))

v

odnij simji nam zyty i lehko i prekrasno 'In one family for us to live is both easy and wonderful'.

Interestingly, either form is possible in adjectives whose subject is an expression such as ce 'this', depending on the particular reference value which it is being used to express: (22)a (C's (13)) b (C's (14))

Ce prekrasne (neuter) 'This is beautiful' Ce prekrasno (neutral) 'It is beautiful'

Apparently, the neuter form is possible in such examples "only if the pronominal subject expresses something quite concrete" (1980:166). The English gloss with this captures this interpretation in (22)a, while the lower degree of referentiality inherent in it appropriately glosses the neutral concord manifested in (22)b. As in Ukrainian, neuter and neutral concord forms are also apparently distinct in Polish (1980: fn.S, p.l69). The second set of data which Corbett presents comes from Surselvan, a dialect of Romansh (the data in question are taken from Haiman, 1974). Positive concord in Surselvan is realised by a suffixal -s (together with, under certain circumstances, a change in the root vowel of the agreeing form) for the masculine, and an -a ending for the feminine gender (see the (b) examples below). A zero 'suffix' on predicative adjectives or participles expresses neutral concord, as illustrated in the (a) examples below.

Sentential subjects (23)a (C's (15))

198

Ch'ins se gidi l'in l'auter ei bien e bi (neutral concord). 'To help one another is good and beautiful'.

Agreement and Anaphora cf. b (C's (16))

L'uffaun ei buns e bials (masc: positive concord). 'The child (masc) is good and beautiful'.

The demonstrative pronoun quei (24)a (C's (17))

Quei ei stau ferm tubac (neutral concord). 'That was strong tobacco'.

cf. b (C's (18))

Il tubac ei staus ferms (masc:positive concord). 'The tobacco was strong'.

The impersonal pronoun igl (25)a (C's (19))

Igl ei sesalzau in urezi (neutral concord). 'There arose a storm'.

cf. b (C's (20))

In urezi ei sesalzaus (masc: positive concord). 'A storm arose'.

In each case, those subjects which cannot be specified for gender or number (i.e. the (a) examples in (23)-(25)) determine a distinctive neutral concord form in their predicate. The reason why they are unspecified, either for number or for gender, in spite of their functioning syntactically as NPs, is (although Corbett does not state this) first, that they are not inherently nominal in character, and second, that they are not referential (N.B. NPs headed by expressions which are not inherently nominal may nevertheless be referential, as the positive concord expressed in the verb in examples like (i), (iii) and (iv) in note 14 indicates). Corbett's main concern in the article is with the morphosyntactic properties of neutral concord, properties which he claims require it to be distinguished from 'positive' concord. He suggests that it should be handled in the morphological component of the grammar by copying the zero value of the features involved from the controller term onto the agree~ng form. The only condition governing the application of neutral concord which he gives is the statement that it applies whenever the controller is unspecified for the particular concord features involved. Yet such a purely formal morpho-syntactic treatment of the phenomenon cannot account for situations in which positive concord may still obtain in a verb whose controller is unspecified for the relevant concord features (e.g. number, as in examples (i), (iii) and (iv) of note 14); or for situations in which neutral concord obtains in spite of the fact that the controller is specified for the relevant concord features (e.g., again, number, as in (20)a and b). The phenomenon is clearly one which can only be described adequately at the utterance-level, and not at the sentence-level. Further example~ from French, in which the positive specification for 199

Agreement and Anaphora the relevant agreement features is suspended, as it were, under a particular referential value are given below:

Metalinguistic reference (26)a

'Caroline' [i.e. the name -FC] est ray~ de rna memoire. ''Caroline' is erased (masc)from my memory'.

b

'La fille' [i.e. the appellation -FC] n'est pas admis ici. ''The girl' is not permitted (masc) here'.

c

'Brutes' [the use of this lexeme] est injurieux. ''Brutes' is (sing) insulting (masc,sing/plur)'. (Examples from Blinkenberg, 1950:74).

Measure expressions

Mille francs n'est pas suffisant 'One thousand francs is not enough'.

(27)a

b

10% est tout ce qu'il faut. '10% is all we need'.

c

Deux livres lui suffira 'Two books will (sing) be enough for him/her'. (Examples from Blinkenberg, 1950:52,69).

An interesting confirmation of this view comes from two important articles (Faarlund, 1977 and Eriksson, 1979) on the distinction between positive and neutral concord (which latter phenomenon is distinctively marked in the two languages under consideration by means of a neuter inflection) in Norwegian and Swedish. As in English, French, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian and Surselvan, neutral concord occurs (obligatorily) in Swedish and Norwegian when the subject is something other than an inherently nominal expression:

Norwegian (28)a

(Faarlund, 1977,ex(l2)) A g~ p~ sk~yter er morosamt (neuter inflection) 'To go on skates is fun'.

b

(F's (13)) Om ho kjem er tvilsamt. 'Whether she comes is doubtful'.

c

(F's (8)b) Att ata arter ar gott. 'To eat peas is good'. In the case of inherently nominal subjects, however,

200

Agreement and Anaphora Faarlund and Eriksson both claim that neutral concord is only possible in the two languages when the subjects in question are indefinite (i.e., presumably, non-referential). However, from discussion with two native speakers of Norwegian, as well as from examination of the authors' own examples, it would appear that, as in the case of the other languages discussed, the possibility of neutral concord depends upon the kind of reference value which a subject NP may sustain within its linguistic context. Eriksson (1979) specifically contrasts Swedish and French in this respect:

French (29)a

(E's ex,p.l04)

La soupe est bonne. Elle est bonne, la soupe. 'The soup (fern) is good (fern)'. 'It(fem)'s good(fem), the soup'.

b

(E's ex,p.l04)

La soupe, c'(neut)est bon(masc)/ *bonne(fem)(-FC).

(E's ex,p.l04)

Soppan(def,sing) ar god (positive concord). 'The-soup is good'.

Swedish t30)a

b

(II

c

(E'x (30))

II

II

11

)

*Soppan ar gott (neutral concord). Soppa (indef) ar gott (neutral concord).

I would like to claim that (30)b is incoherent as an utterance rather than strictly ungrammatical as a sentence: for the incompatibility which it exhibits lies in the fact that, while the subject NP is referential, the interpretation which is re-assigned to it via the expression of neutral concord with it by its predicate is a non-referential one. That is, on the one hand, a specific discourse entity is determined or referred to by the subject NP, yet on the.other, the marking on the predicative adjective is an indication that no such referent exists or is in current focus. Particularly interesting are examples where, as in the case of French (cf. examples ( 8), ( 9), (13) and (14), which all exhibit 'positive' concord, but not in terms of the gender and/or number values of the linguistically expressed lexeme co-occurring within the elliptical expression, or of the 'controller-trigger', as well as NPs of the type le difficile, 'the difficult', le bouche-a-oreille, 'the mouth-to-ear' (i.e. unofficial transmission of information)), the occurrence of neutral concord marked by an agreement target is the signal of the syntactic and semantic incompleteness of the utterance in which it occurs (i.e. that the latter is elliptical in some respect). 201

Agreement and Anaphora In general, it appears that the occurrence of neutral concord entails that the agreeing term's controller expression be re-interpretable as predicative rather than referential (cf. the interpretative value of the French predicate anaphor le (y~ en) postulated in 4.2.2, p.l20). In (3l)a-d, which all exhibit neutral concord, and in which the controllers are all indefinite NPs, it is clear that the interpretation is one in which the referent of the NP in question is involved in some characteristic activity:

Norwegian (3l)a

(F's (2)a)

Pannekaker er godt. (Lit.) 'Pancakes is good'.

b

(F's (2)b)

B~ker

c

(F's (2)c)

Drosje er dyrt. (Lit.) 'Taxis is expensive'.

d

(F's (2)d)

Grammatikk er morosamt. 'Grammar is fun'.

er laererikt. (Lit.) 'Books is instructive'.

Thus, (3l)a-d would be interpreted, via the neutral concord on the adjectives, as 'Eating pancakes is good', 'Reading books is instructive', 'Taking taxis is expensive', and 'Studying grammar is fun', respectively (note the neutral concord apparent in the copula verbs in the English glosses given). The property denoted by the predicate is thus not attributed to the referent of the subject NP directly, but to the characteristic, understood activity in which that referent typically plays a part. However, I do not wish to suggest that there is in each such instance a specific verb in the deep structure of such sentences, having these surface subjects as their underlying objects, a move for which Faarlund argues in the work under consideration. Such specific verbs should be ruled out for precisely the same reasons that I claimed Gouet's (1976) specific underlying, but later deleted, strings should be excluded, in 6.3. Indeed, no such specific verbs need be postulated at all, whether syntactically at the level of underlying structure, or pragmatically~ as inferred by the addressee: one of my native informants noted that, under the neutral concord expressed in examples of type (31), she understood the subject NPs as denoting a mass, or substance, rather than a (countable) unit. It was for this reason that she found (3l)b difficult to interpret, "since it is difficult to understand 'books' as a mass or substance". The conclusion which may be drawn, then, appears to be that predicates manifesting neutral concord do not necessarily agree syntactically with a subject exhibiting a certain structure (namely, a clausal one) at some stage in the derivation of the 202

Agreement and Anaphora sentence in question, but serve to indicate to the addressee of the containing utterance the particular reference value to be attributed to their subject expression. The same applies for neutral concord between articles and the heads of the NPs which they introduce, in French, Spanish and other languages. Concord is thus dependent upon reference (see Corbett, 1983 for further and extensive evidence of this, drawn from the Slavic languages) and is a morpho-syntactic phenomenon applying at the discourse, rather than strictly sentence-syntactic, level. It serves to signal both the cohesion and the coherence of the discourse segment constituted by the linguistic elements which it relates it terms of some specific grammatico-semantic relation, relative to some particular discourse context. Neutral concord correlates quite clearly with predicate pronominal anaphora: in French, indeed, the same combination of the unmarked value of the three concord categories (masculine gender, singular number, and third person) recur in both guises. In the case of NP-internal concord, the article used is 'neuter' ~e, the same form as the one that realises predicate anaphora, i.e. 'neuter' ~e; in the case of NP-external concord, the verb assumes the last two of the unmarked feature values already mentioned, while predicative adjectives and participles take the first two. In the case of the (non-restrictive) relative pronoun, the clitic form of the neuter demonstrative ce~a occurs suppletively in conjunction with a form of the ordinary relative pronoun (cf. ce qui~ ce que, .. ),thereby neutralising the person/ non-person opposition which this system encodes. This same neuter demonstrative, or its clitic form, also occurs, as we have seen (cf. (17)a,b), as a place-holder when the controller is topicalized, and as a suppletive disjunctive form for the accusative clitic 'neuter' pronoun ~e (cf. 4.2.2.1).

6.5

DEGREES OF AGREEMENT AND THE 'AGREEMENT HIERARCHY'

It is clear from our discussion in the preceding sections of this chapter that concord is not a unitary phenomenon. For not only is it necessary, as I have argued, to distinguish between concord in number and concord in gender, but also there exist, in a sizeable number of European languages at least, four distinguishable types of concord: formal-syntactic vs. referential-semantic concord, on the one hand, and positive (i.e. the first two sub-types considered as manifestations of a superordinate type) vs. neutral concord, on the other. As we have seen, there are a number of factors which contribute to determining which particular type will apply in any specific instance. Among the purely linguistic factors, two principal ones are the degree of structural distance separating a controller and its agreeing term, and the degree of syntactic (and hence referential) autonomy of the agreeing term in the 203

Agreement and Anaphora linguistic context in which it occurs (the two factors are, of course, complementary). The notion 'degree of agreement' is implicit in both Blinkenberg (1950) and Moravcsik (1978), but neither of these authors gave the concept the attention as well as recognition it obviously merits. Corbett (1979, 1983), however, has attempted to systematise and clarify this notion in terms of an 'Agreement Hierarchy', on the basis of evidence from a variety of European languages (but mainly from the Slavic family). The most comprehensive version of the AH presented in the two works in question is rable 5.5 (1983:88), which includes both the Predicate Hierarchy (first developed by Comrie, 1975) and information regarding the effect of case. The AH is presented as Table 6.2: Table 6.2:

Corbett's 'Agreement Hierarchy' ('Table 5.5: The Combined Target Hierarchies', 1983:88)

greater likelihood of semantically justified agreement noun adjettive f. participle f. attributive - predicate - relative pronoun - personal pronoun (nominative) (finite verb) (nominative) (nominitive)

"'

oblique

"'

oblique

oblique

The major claim based on the AH is as follows: (32 )a

(C's (16),Ch.5) As we move rightwards along the Agreement Hierarchy, the likelihood of agreement forms with greater semantic justification will increase monotonically [i.e. with no relative decrease- FC](l983:82)

The AH applies primarily at the corpus level (ibid.,p.64), in that it predicts the relative frequency of occurrence of agreement targets in a corpus which manifest one or the other type of concord. Particular languages may, however, apply the AH at sentence level. It then makes the folowing prediction: ( 32)b

204

(C's (2),Ch.4) If a given language allows a choice of agreement in two positions on the Agreement Hierarchy, and the two positions are filled

Agreement and Anaphora in a single sentence, then a combination of semantic agreement in the position to the left on the hierarchy and syntactic agreement in the position to the right will produce an ungrammatical sentence (1983:63). Here, according to Corbett (p.66), only the first two positions on the Hierarchy are affected (i.e., as Corbett also points out, (32)b only affects possible agreement combinations within the clause). However, within the Predicate Hierarchy, which is embedded within the AH at the predicate position (represented by the finite verb) in Table 6.2, the provisions of the Hierarchy can be said to apply at sentence level as well as at corpus level, affecting any combination of the four potential targets involved; thus (32)b will also apply to the Predicate Hierarchy. I will discuss the operation and implications of constraint (32)b in 6.5.1; but first, let us concentrate on the more basic provision, (32)a. First of all, Table 6.2 and its provisions (32)a,b, to the extent that it is correct, may be said to constitute a very important description of the facts which Corbett adduces; yet it is in no sense an explanation of them. For it would seem that the increasing propensity for manifesting 'semantic' (or referential-semantic) agreement shown by elements fulfilling the functions indicated by the positions successively further up the Hierarchy (that is, in a rightward direction) may be explained by the increasingly greater independent reference potential, correlating with the increasingly higher degree of structural distance from their controllers, exhibited by their exponents. Only attributive adjectives (corresponding to the first position on the Hierarchy) amongst the categories retained are internal to the NP. Predicative adjectives, predicate nominals and full verbs (corresponding to the second position), although external to the NP, are nevertheless not fully nominal in character and are thus not independent referring expressions. Relative and personal pronouns, however, are both nominal in character and external to the NP. However, relative pronouns, unlike their personal counterparts, are not potentially independently referring expressions (that is, restrictive, as opposed to non-restrictive relative pronouns 15 cf. 3.1.3 and 3.2.3 above - are not referring expressions, nor do they correspond semantically to arguments). For not only can relative pronouns not be used without an accompanying controller (which in the case at least of restrictive relative pronouns must immediately precede them - structurally, if not linearly) - that is, they are not subject to reference under exclusively pragmatic, non-linguistic control - but also, they serve to indicate the grammatical subordination of the clause which they introduce. Personal pronouns, of course, are the 205

Agreement and Anaphora least grammatically constrained category of those mentioned in the Hierarchy, and as we have seen (in Chapter 5 in particular), are markers of what we might call 'pragmatic' agreement between utterances. Corbett, however, does not distinguish, as Bosch (1983) does, amongst different types of pronoun according to their semantic or pragmatic function (viz. the three categories, syntactic-agreement pronouns - which I would place in the same position in the Hierarchy as relative pronouns -, referential pronouns (i.e. what Corbett had in mind in using the term 'personal pronoun'), and deictic (i.e. nonanaphoric) pronouns). The survey carried out and discussed by Boel (1976) on the use of the masculine- or feminine-gender variants of nouns heading NPs used to refer to women in some profession or occupation provides a convenient testing-ground for the AH as far as French is concerned. Taking the first position on the Hierarchy, this would presumably include the article and other determiners (however, Corbett makes no specific prov1s1on on the AH for the article, presumably since Russian - one of the major languages from which evidence was drawn for the Hierarchy itself- lacks one altogether). Yet Boel found a fairly high degree of variation in the gender of French articles introducing nouns of the type indicated (see the examples cited in note 16). One further such example (written) is given below: (33)

" ... les motifs d'insatisfaction [chez les enseignants de lycee] ne manquent pas, tous lies a l'augmentation des effectifs. Trop d'eleves pour entrainer a l'etude documentaire, se plaint un enseignant d'histoire. Pas assez de paillasses pour placer tout le monde, explique l'enseignante de chimie. Une professeur d'anglais assure qu'en seconde, chaque eleve ne disposera que d'une minute et demie par cours pour s'exprimer ••. " (Le Monde, 14.9.85,p.l0). ' •.• Reasons for dissatisfaction [amongst lycee teachers] are not hard to find, all of them being connected with the increase in numbers of pupils. Too many pupils to train (them) properly in the study of original documents, complains a History teacher. Not enough benches to accommodate everyone, explains a Chemistry teacher. An (fern) English teacher (masc) asserts that in the fifth form, each pupil will only have one and a half minutes per class in which to speak •.• '

Here, professeur, 'teacher', is an inherently masculine noun, yet the indefinite article une which introduces the NP of which it is the head is feminine, showing 'semantically-justifiable' 206

Agreement and Anaphora agreement, in Corbett's (1983) terms. Note, however, that this is a relatively rare occurrence, particularly in (formal) writing. The selection of feminine gender here may have been influenced by the feminine gender signalled by the synonymous noun enseignante in the previous sentence, a noun which varies morphologically-according to the sex of the individual(s) it denotes. Much more common are instances where, in colloquial speech (particularly that of young people), abbreviated forms of such nouns are used, preceded by an article conforming in gender to the sex of their NP's referent (cf.'l~ prof', etc). Note that this option is only available as far as concord in gender is concerned. Such a conflict between article and noun in terms of number concord is virtually impossible in French, as it is in English (cf. *these committee ). Two of the parameters which Boel deduced were motivating this variation were, indeed, the degree of formality of the utterance context, and the degree of empathy on the user's part with the (specific) human referent of the NP. Thus, for example, in formal (written)French, inherently masculine nouns denoting a social or political function (e.g. agent~ amateur 'enthusiast/amateur', connaisseur, d~put~ 'M.P.', ministre, all masculine in gender) determine exclusively formal-syntactic concord in the article of the NP which they head. Indeed, in none of the formal utterance contexts (e.g. administrative notices) in which she observed such nouns heading NPs referring to women was there a lack of correspondence between the gender of the noun and that of its article (i.e. as in (33) between une (fem) and professeur (masc), for instance); on the other hand, she noted a number of instances where there was such a conflict in gender. 16 Such instances occurred either in the context of familiar, spoken utterances or of sensational journalistic style, where the 'personalisation' of the discourse tends to focus the attention of the participants upon the individual referents (women, in these instances) under consideration, rather than upon the more abstract function or office which they fulfil in society (cf. the earlier attested examples 5(17)-(19) presented in connection with pronoun usage). As far as formally distinct person-denoting nouns (e.g. pr~sident (masc)/ pr~sidente (fern), as well as formally invariant but gendervariable ones (e.g. leila secr~taire), are concerned, the parameter governing gender-variation was claimed to be 'type of sociel connotation' attaching to the denotata of the noun. Thus, according to Boel, the masculine-gender variant (the epicene gender) tends to be used when the post or title referred to is an official one in government or administration, thereby conferring upon its occupant a considerable amount of prestige; the feminine-gender variant, however, apparently tends to be used in reference to women holding relatively low-ranking posts (in commerce and within non-professional associations of various kinds). 207

Agreement and Anaphora As far as the formal-syntactic vs. referential-semantic concord manifested by agreement targets other than article.s is concerned, the data presented by Boel broadly confirm the predictions made by Corbett's Agreement Hierarchy. Referentialsemantic concord was observed, for example, in predicative adjectives and participles: (34)

(Boel, 1976,p.65) "Un jeune et joli mannequin, Florine, est amoureuse (fern) ••• " (Le Figaro, 23.11.73). 'A young and pretty model (masc), Florine, is in love (fern)',

in predicate nominals: (35)

(Ibid.,p.65) "Le docteur L.W-H est une specialiste internationale" (L'Humanite,ll.9.71) '(The) Doctor (masc) L.W-H is an(fem) international (fern) specialist',

in post-nominal attributive adjectives: (36)

(Ibid.,p.66) "Une directrice de college et deux professeurs placees sous ses ordres ••• " (Le Figaro, 15.9.72) 'A secondary-school head-teacher(fem) and two teachers (masc) placed (fem,plur) under her •.. ',

and in appositional attributive adjectives: (37)

(Ibid.,p.66) "Spirituelle et pleine d'humour, l'auteur rehabilite ses heroines .•. " (Le Figaro Litteraire, Nov.l970). 'Witty (fern) and full (fern) of humour, the author (masc) rehabilitates her heroines'.

However, as we noted in 6.2 above, she observed no instance of what I am calling referential-semantic concord between prenominal attributive adjectives and their modified noun (cf. ibid.p.65). In my own corpus, however, I do have one (written) example of a pre-nominal attributive adjective agreeing with its head noun in terms of referential-semantic rather than formal-syntactic concord. It is significant that this should have occurred in a letter from a reader to a weekly magazine; this tends to support Boel's predictions: (38) 208

" .•• L'actuelle ministre des Universites [Mme A. Saunier-Seite] veut, par tous les moyens,

Agreement and Anaphora deprecier les maitres-assistants". (Le Nouvel Observateur, Letter from a reader, 30.8-5.9.80). 'The present (fern) minister (masc) for the Universities [Mme A. Saunier-Seite] wishes, through all available means, to undervalue University lecturers'. Example (34), where the pre-nominal elements un and joli exhibit formal-syntactic NP-internal concord with their head noun mannequin~ yet where the NP-external predicative adjective amoureuse shows referential-semantic concord with the subject NP as a whole, illustrates the difference between pre-nominal adjectives and the other types of agreement target exemplified above, in this respect. As expected, Boel found a great many examples of third person pron0uns exhibiting referentialsemantic concord with a masculine NP referring to a woman. As far as relative pronouns are concerned, these are not relevant (in French) to the Agreement Hierarchy, since they remain invariant. There is however, a 'person/non-person' distinction operative within the nominal relative pronoun series (namely, qui vs.que). Indeed, in my own corpus of attested examples, I have one English relative pronoun which expresses referential-semantic concord (via the choice of the persondenoting variant) with an inanimate controller, thereby assigning an individuated, agentive interpretation to it: (39)

"Guildford, one of the few towns in England

who managed to stave off the moral threat posed by 'Life of Brian', ... " (The Guardian, 4.3.80).

Although Corbett (1983) has elaborated the Agreement Hierarchy originally presented in Corbett (1979) to take account of the differing agreement properties of targets capable of functioning as predicates (cf. the Predicate Hierarchy), it is clear that the attributive position also requires similar elaboration. Aside from the articles and other determiners, a distinction must be made between pre-posed attributive, postposed attributive, and appositional adjectives, in the order given, so far as their relative propensity for referentialsemantic concord is concerned. (Corbett 1983:136ff. (and personal communication) claims in fact that the relative order of controller and agreement target comes into play in addition to the provisions of the AH in the case of targets belonging to a single position on the latter: thus, the agreement differences shown by preposed and post-posed attributive adjectives is accounted for by the statement (p.l36) that " ... controllers preceding their targets [which is obligatorily the case with 209

N ,_.

0

¥

prenominal adjective

+ 2. Attributive

,

11

postnominal adjective

-

1

*syntactic pronoun

P r e d i c a t e - Articulator

finite verb

11

participle

.,.

adjective

- Pronoun

¥

anaphoric ,personal pronoun

11

N.B. *'Syntactic pronoun' is a cover term for 'bound' personal pronouns (whether possessive or independent), reflexive, reciprocal, and (restrictive) relative pronouns. Non-restrictive relative pronouns occur at the Pronoun position.

Condition: If members of each sub-division within the 'Attributive' position co-occur in any instance, then both must show the same type of agreement (i.e. either formal-syntactic, or referential-semantic).l 7

1. Attributive

article

11

determiner

11

appositional adjective

11

noun

---------------------------------------------------------------+

1

deictic personal/ demonstrative pronoun

Corbett's (1983) 'Combined Target Agreement Hierarchies' -Revised

greater likelihood of semantically justified agreement

Table 6,3:

~ ~

~

;b.

~

§